MIT: Entente Cordiale
by Northumbrian
Summary: A strange and seemingly inexplicable death in London's West End brings an unlikely collection of individuals together.
1. On the Beat

**On the Beat**

It was a little after ten pm. I was on foot patrol with probationary Constable Kevin Pinner. He was fresh from Hendon training college, and it was only his second day on the job. I was showing him around the patch he would be covering. Pinner's first night shift was in London's theatre district.

We were walking through the bustling West End with its flashing lights, gaudy signs, and gawping tourists. It was a quiet night, but it usually is. The West End isn't like the East End. The most exciting thing to happen was a couple of American tourists asking Pinner for directions to the nearest tube station. Unfortunately, he was clueless, so I had to help him out.

'He's new. It's just there, sir,' I said, pointing at the red roundel and blue bar symbol at the end of the street. 'Always look for a tube sign before you admit you don't know,' I told Pinner after they'd left without thanking me. 'Tourists expect us to know everything.'

As we continued to walk slowly through the streets, I took a good look at a group of raucous youths. Upon hearing the Australian accents and talk of Eurorail, I dismissed them from my mind. Backpackers! I was about to test Pinner, to ask him what he thought of them, when a camera flashed.

'Can they do that?' Pinner asked, looking across at the middle-aged Orientals who were now pointing at us and chattering excitedly.

'It's the hats,' I told him, as I acknowledged the tourists by touching the brim of my bowler. 'They like the hats, especially yours. They aren't doing any harm. This is a nice part of town, Pinner, full of tourists. It's not a bad beat,' I told him confidently.

I turned into one of the quieter side streets and continued to give Pinner the benefit of my years of experience.

'I've been in the job for fifteen years,' I told him. 'I've seen it all,' I added. 'I once saw a man in a domino mask and striped sweater climbing in through a basement window. He had a sack over his back.'

'Seriously?' Pinner asked, his voice tinged with disbelief.

'Yeah.' I nodded. 'I called it in, waited for back up, and then we followed him through the window.'

'Did you catch him red-handed?'

I laughed. 'We caught him with his pants down. Literally! His girlfriend was very embarrassed. It was her house, and it was "just a little game they played." You never know what you'll see in this job.'

By then we'd turned into a side street. We were walking through streets with very few tourists and more chance of something interesting.

* * *

A narrow alley snaked off from the side street. The man in the alley was brawny and shaven-headed. He wore a dark suit and had one hand on the wall to hold himself upright. It appeared that he was struggling to stay on his feet; he was leaning forwards and his head was down.

'We'll go and have a quiet word with him, make sure he's okay,' I told Pinner.

The young probationer's reaction to my comment was one of utter confusion. He looked wildly around, wondering what I was talking about. I realised that he hadn't been looking down the alleys. Instead, he'd been acting like a tourist himself. He was reading the poster outside the only theatre on the street. The New Music Theatre was one of the least known theatres in the West End. The smiling, top-billed star on the poster outside the foyer was someone called Tommy Harris.

The show, according to the poster, was called "Snowflakes" and the star's name was vaguely familiar to me. I dredged the information from the back of my mind. Tommy Harris was a former member of a short-lived boy band who, three years earlier, had won one of the many TV talent shows. I couldn't remember which one. I couldn't even remember the name of the band he'd been in.

Whatever they were called, Tommy Harris's band had proved to be one-hit wonders. They, and he, had released a moderately successful single and an album and had then rapidly retreated into obscurity. He was a good-looking young man, but if he was working in the New Music Theatre, a place which was probably the smallest and certainly the shabbiest of the theatres in the area, then his star had fallen a long way.

'You're not here to sightsee, Pinner,' I reminded the probationer sternly. 'You're on the beat. You need to check every alley.'

Pinner finally looked in the right direction. It was a dark and narrow passageway, barely wide enough for a car, but the well-dressed man was clearly silhouetted by light coming from an open fire door. The door, I noticed, led into the rear of the theatre whose posters Pinner had been reading. Because of his build, and his suit, my first thought was that the man was a bouncer and that someone—or, given his size, several someones—had given him a pasting. In a low voice, I gave Pinner the benefit of my experience and told him what I thought.

As we approached, the man still had one hand against the wall. I realised that he'd been vomiting and that there wasn't a mark on him. I immediately changed my assessment and wondered if, instead of assisting him, we'd be arresting him.

'Unless, of course, he's simply drunk,' I whispered to Pinner in an attempt to maintain my superiority. 'But it may be drugs. If it's booze or weed, we'll smell it. It could be something stronger; you can do the search.'

As we drew closer the man looked up and relief shone from his face. 'That was quick,' he said, blinking tears from his eyes. 'Thank Christ you're here!'

For the second time in seconds I was forced to reassess the situation. i_Arrogance leads to downfall_/i, I reminded myself as Pinner's expression showed that he was no longer impressed by my wisdom. It was quite obvious that the man before us was neither drunk nor high. His frightened face was pale and tearstained. Before I could reply, my radio crackled into life. I responded with my call sign.

'We've a report of an incident at the New Music Theatre, Sarge. The 999 call was very sketchy: it said something about a body, but the caller was crying. He wasn't making much sense. We've dispatched a car, but it's on your beat. How close are you?' The voice said.

'Received,' I said. 'I'm already on scene; we've just arrived. I'll let you know what's happening.'

'It's a coincidence, sir,' I told the man as I re-secured my radio on my shoulder. 'Constable Pinner and I were simply passing. Could you tell us what, exactly, is the problem?'

'Tommy's dead,' the man said. 'At least… I think it's Tommy.' He couldn't say more because tears were again tracking down his face.

'Where?' I asked.

He waved at the open fire door.

I peered into the theatre and found myself staring down a poorly lit corridor. The walls were painted a horrible diarrhoea-brown, and the scuffed and shabby doors were the colour of cow-pats. The far end of the narrow passageway was crowded with showbiz types. They were being kept away from an open door by an elderly man in overalls. The man, who had his back to me, was struggling to hold back the crowd.

'Get this man's details, Pinner,' I ordered. 'Name, address, witness statement, everything.' I caught Pinner's eye. 'And don't let him leave,' I added forcibly. 'I'll go and see what's happening.'

As I walked in through the fire door, one of the crowd members—a young girl in baggy, bright pink trousers and a sunflower yellow peasant blouse—saw me. Her purple hair was tied into three bunches with enormous polka dot bows, and she was straining to see past the man who was blocking the corridor.

'Here's the rozzers, Jacko,' she squeaked.

The elderly man turned to face me. His expression changed from that of a man clinging by one hand to the top of the Shard to one who was about to be pulled to safety. Some small semblance of colour returned to his grey face.

'You're not by yourself, are you?' he asked desperately.

That question, and the frightened look in his eyes, was the final piece of the puzzle. It was confirmation that I was dealing with something very serious. This wasn't simply "Tommy's dead", or "something about a body".

'I was passing on foot patrol, sir,' I told him as I approached. 'Can you tell me what's going on?'

As he distractedly indicated the open door, the girl in the pink dungarees dodged past him and looked into the room. She screamed, and fainted.

Moments later I, too, saw the contents of the room. I swore and stared in disbelief at the scene. Although I tried to retain my professionalism, it took me a few moments to calm my roiling stomach and regain my composure.

'Pinner!' I yelled as my priorities changed once again. 'Get in here now. Bring chummy with you! And get this lot out of this corridor.' I turned to the elderly man and put on my professional face. 'You, sir! She called you Jacko…' I began. The girl with purple hair moaned and began to stir.

'Alf Jackson,' he told me. 'Stagehand.'

'Alf Jackson,' I repeated, fixing his name in my mind. 'Where can we hold this lot, Mr Jackson? Is there somewhere away from the crime scene?'

'Dunno. In the auditorium? On the stage?' he suggested as Pinner arrived at my side.

The first witness was alongside Pinner. The shaven-headed man sobbed, shuddered, and averted his gaze from the open door as he hurried past. Pinner, however, looked into the room. He froze for a moment and then screamed. I had never before heard any man make such a high-pitched noise. Pinner turned and ran outside to be sick.

'Would you take everyone into the auditorium, please, Mr Jackson?' I asked the stagehand. 'Try to ensure that no one leaves the building. Someone will be along to see you soon.'

I considered entering the room. A very small part of me wanted to make sure that it wasn't a wind-up, some elaborate and very grisly practical joke. But the smell of fresh blood was real enough, and that alone made it easy for me to justify my decision to stay where I was. I told myself that I didn't want to contaminate the crime scene and that there was definitely no need for me to check for signs of life. The latter was certainly true.

As Alf Jackson herded the troupe away from the scene, I grabbed my radio and gave my call sign. 'Suspicious death, New Music Theatre,' I said, marvelling at the understatement in those first two words. 'Partial remains of an as-yet unidentified male. What's the ETA on the car … never mind, they're here.'

PCs Hampshire and Khan looked very cheerful as they walked in through the open fire door. They were obviously making jokes about Pinner puking. They stopped smiling when they saw my face.

'Christ, Andy,' I said in relief. 'Am I glad to see you! You, too, Mo!'

* * *

An hour later the place was taped off and a crowd of tourists had gathered to watch the free show.

The bright theatre lights were joined by a blaze of flashing blue lights. CID had banished Andy and Mo to keep an eye on the front of the theatre; Pinner and I were guarding the alley. Inside, SOCO were processing the crime scene and CID were taking statements from the witnesses.

At my insistence, Pinner had been checked out by the paramedics. They said he was okay, but he was obviously extremely badly shaken. I offered him the opportunity to leave, but he stubbornly refused to return to the nick.

When I'd spoken to the young paramedic who'd checked Pinner out, I was certain that she wasn't coping very well, either. Sometimes I wonder about the requirement for a health professional to confirm "no signs of life"; there are occasions where it's blindingly obvious to anyone.

'What should I have done, Sarge?' Pinner asked me.

The pleading in his voice was that of a man racked with guilt. I remembered the feeling from my early days in the service. I remembered the cyclist crushed under the car, the girl I couldn't save, and I remembered what my sergeant had told me.

'We did everything we could, Kevin,' I assured him. 'We can't always make things better. Sometimes all we can do is pick up the pieces. Nothing that happened here tonight is your fault!'

'Did you see him, Sarge?' Pinner asked.

I'd lost count of the number of times he'd asked that question.

'You know I did,' I said.

'Where do you think the top half of him has gone?' he asked hesitantly.

'That's for CID to figure out,' I said. 'Don't worry about being shaken up, Kevin. You did okay, and don't let anyone tell you anything else. If anyone at the station tries to take the piss, let me know, and I'll have words with them. That was a hell of an introduction to the job. I've been in the force for fifteen years, and I don't think I've seen a dozen bodies.'

'Have you ever seen anything like that?' he asked worriedly.

'No, Kevin,' I assured him. 'I've never seen anything like that. Until tonight the worst I ever saw was a bloke who jumped onto the third rail on the tube.' I shuddered and, as was always the case then I mentioned it, remembered the sweet smell of burning flesh.

'How do you think they did it?' he asked. 'Samurai sword?'

'Straight through a torso, bones and all,' I observed. 'That's a helluva sharp sword, Kevin, or a helluva strong killer.'

'I wonder how they got the other half of the body out,' he pondered.

I didn't answer immediately; I couldn't, because that had been puzzling me, too. It was as if everything from the waist up had simply vanished.

I was still carefully considering my reply when I saw the car. At the end of the alley, a gleaming black Range Rover was gliding to a halt.

'Hello…' I said. 'I reckon things are going to get very interesting now.'

'Who're they?' Pinner asked.

'I think, Kevin, that we're about to find out if the rumours are true,' I told him. 'For a few years there have been stories about weird deaths, strange cases. I've heard them from several sources and I think that, a long time ago, I was sort-of involved in one. They all say the same thing: if the death is strange enough, a black Range Rover turns up, and a group of people claiming to be part of the security services take charge. Some people call them UFO hunters; others say that they're ghost busters. According to the rumours, when they arrive they tell everyone that they are from the Auror Office … Bloody hell!'

I stared at the tall, broad-shouldered woman who had climbed out from the driver's seat. 'Bobbie Beadle, as I live and breathe,' I shouted. 'How long have you been a ghost buster?'

'Tracey Twigg' she said. 'Long time no see! How are you? When did you make sergeant?'

As she strode up the alley, two younger men followed her. All three of them wore black ankle-length trench coats, black trousers, white shirts, and grey ties.

One of the men was small, only about five foot four. There was no weight to him either. He was whip thin, wiry and his hair was a curly, mousey brown. He was also fully alert and very wary. His eyes were darting everywhere, and he had his hand inside his coat. Wondering if he was carrying a concealed firearm, I placed a hand on my baton, though it didn't provide much reassurance.

The other man was a good-looking and well-built six-footer. He had cropped blonde hair, a square jaw, and bright blue eyes. He looked like the Aryan ideal, and he was looking very smug about something.

'A couple of years ago,' I said.

'Good to see you, Trace,' she told me. 'Time flies. It's been what, five years?

'Closer to ten,' I said.

'Really, where have the years gone?' Bobbie shrugged. 'This is Dennis Creevey,' she indicated the smaller man, 'and Stan Cresswell,' she pointed at the taller. 'They're from the Auror Office.'

'Told you,' I said to Kevin.


	2. On the Pull

**On the Pull**

The biggest advantage of working for the Muggle Interface Team is the fact that, unlike the rest of the Auror Office, we always work the day shift. There is a downside of course; we're on call twenty-four hours a day.

I had finished work at five and gone to do my duty. I'd allowed my mother to feed me and fuss over me, and I'd listened with interest as she told me how well my kid brother was doing and what a good and clever boy he was.

It took me longer than I'd hoped to escape from my mother's clutches. When I did, I Flooed straight back to the Ministry. I had no intention of going into the office, but the Ministry building was in central London and it was a great place from which to enter the Muggle world.

I was due four days off work, and as I'd already seen my mother, that meant four days to myself. It was time to look for some fun.

When I left the Ministry and strolled down onto the Strand, I was wearing my best and most fashionable casual Muggle clothes. I slowly made my way towards Trafalgar Square, stopping in every pub to check out the talent. It was about ten o'clock, and I was stone cold sober. Walking into a raucous pub when you haven't been drinking is always an interesting experience.

The Princess of Wales wasn't full, and most of the clientele were middle-aged commuters on their way home after a few drinks too many. A blousy woman in her forties seemed to be very interested in me. I gave her a few minutes of my time, but she stank of booze, cheap perfume, and desperation, so I made my excuses and left. My next stop was the Sherlock Holmes. It was much noisier and busier than the Princess of Wales; there was standing room only in the bar. The place was packed, mostly with tourists, and not all of them were couples.

'Gomen'nasai,' I told the pretty little Japanese girl whose arm I'd "accidentally" nudged as I made my way to the bar.

She had her back to me and she began her reply in rapid Japanese before she'd turned to look at me. The moment she did, she found herself facing my chest. Her jaw dropped, she stopped talking and she stared. As she looked up into my face in surprise, I smiled.

'Kon'nichiwa,' I said as politely as I could. I had to speak loudly in order to be heard over the noise of the crowded pub. The three girls she was with chattered and giggled in their native tongue. 'I've now almost exhausted my knowledge of Japanese,' I admitted. 'I spilled your drink, I'm sorry. Can I buy you another? What are you drinking?'

I tell people that I'm a polyglot. It isn't true, of course, but I can say "I'm sorry" and "Hello" in fifteen different languages. It's a great help as an icebreaker when wandering the bars and clubs of central London.

The girl whose drink I'd spilled was called Fuyumi, and her friends were Aki, Chihiro, and Hoshi. Within minutes I'd impressed them by the way I'd not only managed to get served at the bar, but also found a few seats for them. We were clustered around the tiny, drink-laden table, and I was attempting to persuade them all to try the extra pint of beer I'd bought for them.

'You're in England,' I told them, holding up the pint I'd bought myself. 'You should try the beer!' They did, and they photographed each other doing it, but only Hoshi took more than a single sip.

Half an hour later we were discussing the sights of London. By then I was focusing my attention on Hoshi because it seemed that, of the four, she was the one most interested in me. She wore glasses and wasn't the best-looking of the quartet—that was definitely Chihiro—but Hoshi was hanging on my every word.

After discovering that the quartet had three more days in London, I suggested that they visit Camden Town. I even offered to act as Hoshi's personal guide to that part of London. That suggestion created a lot more giggles and chatter. Hoshi was trying to formulate a reply, which I was expecting to be a polite refusal, when the Mirrorphone in my pocket gave out a wail, followed by a loud, staccato drumbeat. It meant only one thing.

'Duty calls,' I told the girls as I pulled the Mirrorphone from my pocket and looked down into it. 'Agent Cresswell,' I said, emphasising the first word and once again making the girls chatter excitedly in Japanese.

'The Muggle Interface Team protocols have been activated, Auror Cresswell,' I was told. 'Please go immediately to the Ministry car park.'

'On my way,' I said.

I replaced the Mirrorphone in my pocket and held out my hand to Hoshi. She took it with an eagerness that indicated she'd been going to accept my offer. Instead of shaking her hand as she expected, I bowed, lifted her hand to my lips, and kissed it. This caused more consternation among her companions. Despite their giggles, Aki was quick enough to take a photo of my action on her phone. After releasing Hoshi's hand, I pulled a card containing my name and phone number from my pocket.

'It has been a real pleasure, ladies,' I told them as I bowed politely to them all. As her friends giggled, I handed Hoshi the card, 'If you want to see the real sights, if you want a good time, Hoshi, phone me tomorrow. Sayōnara.'

Turning on my heels, I walked quickly from the crowded bar. Making my way into the toilets, I found an empty cubicle. Once inside I pushed the door closed; I didn't lock it, I'm not that cruel to my fellow man. I simply held it closed while I Disapparated.

I arrived in the Ministry car park just in time to see Den Creevey climbing into the front passenger seat of the Range Rover. I opened the rear door and climbed in behind him. Detective Chief Inspector Wood was, as I expected, already in the driver's seat. The moment I closed the door, we pulled out from the parking space.

'Where are we going, Bobbie?' Dennis asked as we drove towards the exit.

'The West End, the New Music Theatre,' she said. 'The police have found half of a body in a dressing room. It seems that the room was locked from the inside: there are no windows and the corridor was occupied.'

'D'you reckon the killer Apparated into the room?' I asked, leaning forward.

'Half a body?' Dennis asked at the same moment. 'Left, right, top, or bottom?'

'Possibly,' Bobbie told me. 'Bottom half,' she said to Dennis. 'No head, torso, or arms. All we have are the legs and the lower abdomen.'

'Have you been drinking, Stan?' she added.

'I'm not drunk. I bought myself a pint, but I only managed to drink half of it before the call came through,' I told her as I pulled a Toothflossing Stringmint from my pocket.

Bobbie turned on the siren and blue lights and we pulled out onto the Strand. Thanks to the sirens, the London traffic parted for us, and we sped rapidly towards our destination. It took only a matter of minutes for us to reach the theatre. I barely had time to pull my uniform out from my Auror wallet and get changed before we arrived. The crime scene was, as always, crawling with Muggle police. As we pulled up, my Mirrorphone tinkled. I quickly read the message: "Call me tomorrow, Hoshi."

I touched the Mirrorphone and said, 'Save contact.'

'I've scored,' I told Dennis as we alighted. I was feeling pleased with myself, but he merely gave me a dismissive shrug.

For the first time since my original mission, when I was a wet-behind-the-ears trainee, Bobbie was recognised. The moment we closed our doors, one of the uniformed police officers, a dumpy, short-haired woman, yelled a greeting.

'Bobbie Beadle, as I live and breathe,' the woman shouted. 'How long have you been a ghost buster?'

'Tracey Twigg,' Bobbie said. 'Long time no see! How are you? When did you make sergeant?'

Den and I walked around the car and fell in behind Bobbie. She strolled up the alley and ducked under the tape. As we approached the scene, Den kept his hand in his coat pocket. I had no doubt that he was holding his wand. From the way he was looking around I suspected that he was checking to see if there was anyone invisible or Disillusioned in the area.

'A couple of years ago,' the sergeant said.

'Good to see you, Trace,' Bobbie said. 'Time flies. It's been what, five years?'

'Closer to ten,' the woman said.

'Really, where have the years gone?' said Bobbie. 'This is Dennis Creevey,' she indicated Den, 'and Stan Cresswell.' She pointed at me. 'They're from the Auror Office.'

'Told you,' the woman said to her pale-faced young colleague. She'd heard of us, and she was looking at us with unbridled curiosity.

'These days, I'm Bobbie Wood,' Bobbie continued. As we approached the two coppers, she raised her left hand and showed the sergeant her rings. 'I'm married, two kids! And I'm a DCI, believe it or not.' She pulled out her warrant card and showed it to the sergeant.

'Detective Chief Inspector! In SO15?' the sergeant said, obviously surprised. 'Sorry, ma'am, I didn't know. But I have to ask, what the hell has this job got to do with Counter Terrorism Command?'

'Just call me Bobbie, Trace,' said Bobbie. 'I'm the Auror Office Liaison, and these boys don't hold much on ceremony. Before we go in and annoy whoever's in charge, what can you tell us? Who was the first officer on the scene?'

'Me and PC Pinner here.' the sergeant said, jerking a thumb towards her colleague.

'Excellent,' Bobbie said. 'Where's the crime scene? Were there any witnesses?'

'The crime scene is just through that fire door,' Tracey told her. 'The theatre staff and the actors are all inside, including the guy who found the body. Pinner took a brief statement from him, but plainclothes took over when they arrived. DCI Bradstreet from SCD1 is the man in charge now; I don't know him.'

'Neither do I,' admitted Bobbie. 'What else can you tell me, Trace?'

'I spoke to a stagehand, Alf Jackson,' the sergeant told her. 'He was in the corridor when another man, Davey Drury, kicked in the door. Mr Jackson confirmed that the door was locked from the inside. Mr Drury was Tommy Harris's—Harris is the victim—Drury was his chauffeur and minder. Drury told Alf Jackson that he was worried because he knew that Harris was in the room, but wasn't answering. When they kicked in the door, they found the bottom half of a man's body. He'd been neatly sliced in two, but there was no sign of the top half. That's all I got from Jackson before CID took over. Did you get anything from Mr Drury, Kevin?' she asked her colleague.

The pale-faced PC pulled out his notes. 'Davey Drury told me that he wasn't simply a chauffeur, he claimed that he was Harris's boyfriend. He said that he was in the corridor when he heard voices in the changing room. Tommy Harris was talking to a woman. He claimed that Tommy shouted, and then someone dropped something and everything went quiet. Drury said that he knocked, but got no answer, and Alf Jackson arrived to see what all the noise was about. That was when Mr Drury kicked in the door and found the body.'

'Do you think they cooked up the story between them?' Bobbie asked.

The sergeant shrugged. 'We questioned them separately,' she said. 'And I don't know why they would. They didn't appear know each other. Jackson called Drury "that bald bloke"; he didn't even seem to know his name.'

'Drury called Jackson "the stagehand", Sarge,' said Pinner thoughtfully.

'Has the victim been identified?' Bobbie asked. 'Are you sure it's this Tommy Harris?'

'Yes, er, no,' Pinner said.

'I don't see how it can be anyone else, unless Drury is lying,' said Tracey.

'Locked room, and only half of the body, despite the fact that voices, plural, were heard in the room?' Bobbie asked.

Both Pinner and the sergeant nodded.

'You said someone dropped something. What, exactly, was the noise he heard?' Bobbie asked.

Pinner once again referred to his notes. 'He heard a thump, as if someone had dropped something, or perhaps knocked over a chair,' he read.

'Unless this man Drury killed his boss, somehow locked the door, and then came up with an unbelievable story that doesn't even give him a decent alibi, this certainly sounds like a job for us,' Bobbie told the sergeant. She turned to Dennis. 'Den,' she ordered. 'Call the office. We'll need a photographer, forensics, and a medic. Once you've done that, go and talk to the SIO, DCI Bradstreet. See if you can speak to the witness, Drury, too. You know the drill.' Dennis nodded, and scurried off.

Bobbie then turned to me. 'Stan, take a look at the crime scene, talk to SOCO. See what they've discovered so far.'

'Okay,' I nodded, and left her talking shop with the two coppers.

I walked through the fire door into the distinctly dingy corridor, and was only yards from the open door when a young woman in a smart grey suit turned the corner at its opposite end. When she saw me, the woman strode rapidly down the corridor, obviously determined not to let me reach the crime scene before she did. She was tall—only a couple of inches shorter than me—dark and slim, and she had a puffball of curly black hair. I slowed, allowing her to reach the open door a fraction before I did. We looked into the crime scene together.

The room was small and crowded. In addition to the half a body I was expecting, it contained four Muggle forensics people in their white one-peice suits. I noticed that the door to the room had a star on it. I'd always assumed that the star on the door was a myth—apparently not. There were flowers, too. A huge bouquet was propped up next to the mirror.

'Who the hell are i_you_/i?' the woman asked me aggressively.

'The name's Cresswell, Stan Cresswell,' I said coolly, giving her my most enigmatic smile. 'I'm with the Auror Office; we're attached to MI5. If you like, you can call me Stan. And you are?'

'Detective Constable Smith,' she told me firmly. I was certain that her expression of distaste was simply there to hide her smile. 'You can call me DC Smith. You're no Bond. Besides, he works for six, not five.'

'Dee-see, what a lovely name,' I told her. She continued to scowl, turned away from me, and looked into the room.

'Any preliminary conclusions?' she asked one of the white-suited individuals, a tall, thin man. All four were watching us. Both DC Smith and I realised that they had stopped working to listen to our banter.

'Disintegration Ray,' he said, looking at me. 'It looks like everything above his waist simply vanished.'

'Chopped in two, and the top half carried from the room?' DC Smith suggested.

'I'd say yes, except there is no blood between here and the door,' the man said. 'And I can't see how you could move the top half of a body without leaving a blood trail. I wasn't joking when I said "Disintegration Ray". Nothing else explains the lack of blood spatter, or the way the blood is pooling around the waist where the remains fell. It's a clean cut straight through flesh, bones, and organs. It's decidedly odd.'

'Odd?' DC Smith said. 'It's bizarre! I've never seen anything like it.'

'And that's why I'm here to help,' I said.

'Smart arse,' DC Smith said.

'You aren't the first woman to tell me that,' I said. 'Yours isn't bad either, Dee-see. Pert, I'd call it.'

She kept up her scowl, and even swore at me, but I could see through her, so I ignored it.

'Is that fan mail?' I asked, pointing at the half-dozen envelopes on the make-up table.

'I'll take a look at them,' Smith said. She pulled on a pair of those blue plastic gloves the Muggle police use and held out her hand.

While she was distracted, I pulled open my coat and peered into my pocket. My Dark Detector wasn't registering anything, and my miniature Sneakoscope was silent. Grabbing my wand, and keeping it concealed inside my coat, I checked for recent magic. There were lingering traces of an Apparition, and a Disapparition, but nothing else. When I looked up, DC Smith was rifling through the letters.

'I'll need copies of those,' I told her.

'You won't get them,' she said firmly.

She was looking still looking angrily at me, but I knew she'd come around. It was the almost certainly the smell of blood, it was affecting me, too.

'We will,' Den said, appearing behind her. 'I've just cleared it with your boss.'

'And here are our experts,' I said. Dopey Donny Dunbar strolled along the corridor. He was carrying his camera, already on its tripod. Dumpy little Anne White was with him, and so was Healer Skoll. The Healer saw me and glared. After her daughter, Amber, and I had—very amicably, I thought-split up, she'd told me, "I forgive, but I never forget." It seemed to me that she'd been lying.

'Need any help with the witnesses, Den?' I asked.

'Yes, but you're going elsewhere,' he said. He turned to DC Smith. 'You're Tallulah Smith, right?' he asked.

She nodded.

'We've got an address for the likely victim, Mr Harris,' Dennis told her. 'DCI Bradstreet has sent uniforms to check the address, but he wants you to go and check the place out. You can take Stan with you.'

She opened her mouth to protest, but Den cut her off. 'I've already agreed it with your boss, Dave Bradstreet,' he told her.

'Looks like we're stuck with each other, Tallulah,' I told her. 'Look on the bright side; at least it gets us both away from the smell of this butcher's shop.' I pointed at the star on the door. 'What do you think the headlines will say tomorrow, "A Star is Torn"?'

It turned out that black humour was her weakness. She finally cracked a smile. It was a nice smile, too.


	3. On the Case

**On the Case**

'Fancies himself, doesn't he?' Tracey said to me as she watched Stan Cresswell stroll confidently into the theatre.

'He's young, he's fit, and he knows it,' I told her. 'But he's not your type, is he? He's not even the right gender.' The probationer standing next to her tried not to look surprised.

Tracey noticed, tilted her head towards her colleague, and laughed. 'I told Pinner that my partner's called Toni, he didn't catch on,' she said. 'So you're married? Let me guess: he's tall, broad-shouldered, and a fitness freak.'

'Professional Keeper—goalkeeper,' I admitted. 'He's called Ollie, and he's a Scot.'

I pulled out my phone and showed Tracey some photos of my husband and sons. She made the appropriate congratulatory noises.

'You're looking well, Bobbie,' Tracey told me.

'Thanks, so are you.'

'So what, exactly, does this Auror Office do?' she asked.

'Officially, they work with us, with SO15,' I said.

'Unofficially?' she asked.

'I'm sure you've heard the rumours, Trace. We get called in to look at the weird stuff. Locked rooms, impossible crimes, that's our speciality,' I admitted.

'Ghosts and vampires?' she asked.

'I've never seen a ghost,' I told her honestly.

What I thought, but didn't say, was: i_A tiny fraction of a percent of Muggles can see ghosts, and I'm not one of them._/i I didn't mention vampires, because I've worked with one on a number of occasions. Instead I looked into Tracey's face. 'I've never investigated a crime where a ghost was responsible,' I told her truthfully, 'although we were involved in that "Werewolf" case in Yorkshire a few years ago and the vampire case a few years before that.'

'That wasn't a real werewolf, or a real vampire,' said Tracey dismissively.

She was only fifty percent correct, but I didn't tell her that. Instead, I laughed. 'A real werewolf! Is that what people think we're looking for?' I asked. 'It might be cool to carry a pistol that fires silver bullets, but I don't. I've been in this job for years, and we've had a hand in arresting several killers, but none of them have been ghosts, or werewolves. Or Martians for that matter! Despite the coats, we aren't the Men in Black.'

Tracey looked into my eyes, trying to determine whether I was lying. I wasn't, although I was skating across the thin ice of a near-truth. I couldn't tell her that ghosts, vampires, and werewolves exist, and I was grateful that she hadn't mentioned witches or wizards. Tracey—like me—was a Muggle; unlike her, however, I knew the truth. It was my job to make sure that the monsters stayed hidden under the bed.

Tracey stared thoughtfully at me. I thought that she was going to continue to question me, but she was distracted by something going on over my shoulder. 'Yours?' she asked.

I turned to see Forensic Magic Specialist Anne White, Imager Don Dunbar, and Healer Dacia Skoll approaching. 'Yes,' I told Tracey, 'crime scene investigator, photographer, and pathologist.' I turned my attention to the trio. 'Evening all, the crime scene is just down the corridor. Stan is there.'

'Is he,' Dacia said grimly.

Tracey noted the hostility in Dacia's voice and raised an enquiring eyebrow. I waited for the trio to enter the building before speaking. 'Stan and Dacia's daughter,' I said. 'It ended very badly, almost a year ago. Amber is over it, but Dacia has a very long memory. She claims all is forgiven, but I really don't think that it is. She doesn't forget.'

'Very few of us do,' Tracey observed.

I shrugged. 'Thanks for the information, Trace. Let's try to keep in touch. I could meet you for a coffee sometime, and we could catch up on the gossip.'

'Yeah, why not?' agreed Tracey.

I handed her my card. 'You can reach me on the mobile number at any time,' I told her. 'Now, I'd better go and talk to DCI Bradstreet and his team.'

* * *

It was almost three am when I crept quietly across the bedroom. As I slid under the duvet, I disturbed my husband.

'Late night call,' Ollie mumbled.

'First in a i_very_/i long time,' I reminded him. 'I peeped in to see the boys; they're both fast asleep.'

'So was I,' he whispered. 'They haven't stirred since we put them to bed.'

He rolled over, kissed my cheek, hugged me, and immediately drifted off to sleep. As I lay there, his arm a comforting weight across my waist, I stared at the ceiling, wondered what we were dealing with this time, and tried to figure out how to deal with the changes in the team.

I needed to do something about Dacia's continued hostility towards Stan, as it could have led to an unprofessional argument at the crime scene. It was fortunate that Dennis was well aware of the problem. He'd taken care of it by arranging for Stan and a keen as mustard young Detective Constable called Tallulah Smith to go and check out Tommy Harris's home address.

Dennis was extremely capable, and once again I was wondering whether I was still needed. He'd been placed in charge while I'd been on maternity leave, and he'd done a very good job. While I'd been talking to Tracey, Dennis had worked his magic—the magic of his personality, not his actual magic—on the police. With his usual combination of politeness, deference, and respect in the face of the usual mistrust he had impressed the Senior Investigating Officer, DCI Bradstreet. By the time I went to speak to Bradstreet, Dennis had already persuaded the SOI to e-mail us copies of the witness statements his officers were taking.

We had cleared SOCO from the scene for a few minutes while Dacia, Anne, and Don did their jobs. Afterwards, Dacia had wanted to take the remains back to the Auror Office for further tests. That had been one request too many for DCI Bradstreet. He'd objected vociferously.

It had taken all of our powers of persuasion, but eventually Dennis and I convinced him to agree to allow us to take the lower torso and legs away from the scene. We'd had to include Dacia in our discussions. When she promised that she would work overnight, send him a copy of her report, and ensure the remains were sent to the Coroner's mortuary before dawn, he finally acquiesced.

Bradstreet knew that he wouldn't even get the official post mortem started until later that day and the prospect of an early report was enough to tip the balance in our favour. All in all, I thought, it had been a successful start to our investigation. We had managed to carry out the work we needed to do without alienating the police, and Bradstreet hadn't even objected when, after a call from Stan, we sent Anne and Don across to check out the victim's flat.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I heard was a cry from one of the boys. It was seven o'clock, and I was tired and slow. Ollie moved first, so I rolled over onto my side and left him to it. The next time I opened my eyes it was almost ten, and I could hear Ollie and the boys beneath me in the living room.

'Morning,' I shouted down the stairs. 'I'm awake, and I'm going for a shower.'

By the time I finally went downstairs, Ollie had made me breakfast. I fussed over the boys and, as I ate my muesli and yoghurt and drank my tea, I watched "Show Me Show Me" on CBeebies with them. They were still watching telly as I prepared to leave. It was a gloriously sunny day, and Ollie promised that he'd take the kids to the park once I'd gone.

'Do you want to tell me what you're dealing with?' Ollie asked.

I rapidly explained what we'd been called to. 'We're fairly confident that someone Apparated into Mr Harris's locked dressing room, and then Disapparated out, leaving the bottom half of a body behind,' I concluded. 'There are still a lot of questions to answer. Hopefully Dennis will have copies of the witness statements. I'm sure he'll be in the office by now. I'll phone you when I know what's happening. But I i_will_/i be home before the boys' bedtime, I promise. Cheerio.'

As I turned to leave, Ollie lifted the boys into his arms. He followed me through the kitchen and out into the garage. They watched in silence as I unlocked the car.

'Bye, Ollie, bye-bye boys. You be good while I'm at work,' I ordered.

'Bye-bye, Mummy,' Ollie said on their behalf.

I kissed my husband and sons and climbed into the Range Rover. Reaching across to the passenger side, I placed my Muggle mobile phone in the shielded glove box before the car's magic rendered it useless. Ollie had stepped back. He stood in the door and was encouraging the boys to wave to me. I strapped myself in, waved goodbye to my family, and used my Mirrorphone to call the Portkey Office for a remote activation. After a few moments, the Portkey Office did their job; there was a flash of blue light and an instant later I was in my parking space in the Ministry car park. Unlike my arrival the previous evening, I didn't simply sit and wait for my colleagues. Unbuckling my belt I picked up my Mirrorphone, crossed the street, and entered the Ministry.

Harry's secretary, Martha, looked up when I entered the Auror Office. She inclined her head to the glass box behind her. I looked over and saw that Head Auror Potter was in his office. He had only recently returned from the Quidditch World Cup in Patagonia, and he was buried in a backlog of paperwork.

'I have to let him know the moment you arrive,' Martha warned me.

I nodded. My boss would want an update. It was no surprise; I'd been working with Harry for more than a dozen years, and I knew that he was always very interested in any case where it appeared that a Muggle died at magical hands. Unfortunately, I had nothing concrete to tell him.

There was no sign of either Dennis or Stan in the main Auror Office, so I pushed open the frosted glass door marked "Specialist Auror Services" and entered a corridor where I, and the rest of Harry's "Support Staff", worked.

My office, the office of the "Muggle Liaison Officer", was first on the left. After hanging up my hex-proof coat, and admiring the view from my windows, I checked my in tray.

Windows fill two sides of my office, they look out over London from the thirtieth floor of The Shard. My office isn't actually in the Shard. It's about two miles away, and it's underground. The view has been magically borrowed, I've no idea how, but I like a light and airy office, so that's what the Ministry of Magic have provided for me.

Sitting at my chrome and glass desk, I emptied the tray and looked through the reports in it. I hoped that they would contain something useful in them.

At the top of the tray was a neatly handwritten memorandum. The memo was embossed with an A encircled by an O, the symbol of the Auror Office. The crossed wand symbol and the F.M.U. stamp showed that the memo was from the Auror Office Forensic Magic Unit, and therefore from Anne White.

Anne's message was, like Anne herself, short and to the point; it was an easy decision for me to read it first.

_AOFMU/FMU#1/MIT: 377 AJW1_

_Bobbie,_

_The theatre shows the residual effects of magic. I have confirmed only that someone Disapparated from the room. If there were any other spells used, then they have been extremely well camouflaged. I can't be 100% certain that no other spells were used, but in my opinion it's extremely unlikely. The victim's flat shows no signs of any magic at all._

_Preliminary conclusion: Either, the killer used a very sharp blade and then Disapparated with the upper half of the body; or, this is a fatal Splinching. That last doesn't rule out murder, but deliberately Splinching someone isn't easy._

_Anne_

I placed the memo in my pending tray and examined the next item. It was a manila envelope also embossed with the Auror Office symbol and labelled with the same case reference, MIT:377, as Anne's memo. It was marked "Evidence". A memo from Dennis Creevey was attached to the front. Den's note was not much longer than Anne's.

_MIT: 377 DC1_

_Bobbie_

_Take a look at these letters. The police have the originals. These are Geminio copies that Stan made. The envelope, however, is the original. I think we should check this out. The latest letter, the only one still in its envelope, was found at the crime scene. Stan found the other five at Mr Harris's apartment. They're all in the same hand, from the same person._

_The parchment is interesting. It's manufactured by Plume et Encre, in Paris, and so is the envelope. From the witness statements, it seems that all of the letters were delivered to the victim's changing room at the theatre, but no one saw who delivered them._

_According to Stan, DC Smith was very interested in these letters, too. It's possible that the police have already contacted Interpol. I've alerted the Département de la Justice Magique in Paris and suggested that they may want to involve the Bureau des Aurors. I've also asked them to check up on French witches named Éloïse, but I'm not sure that will get us very far._

_Dennis_

I rifled through the folder. It contained six letters.

The parchment was obviously expensive. The perfumed, pale pink rectangle was bordered by two intertwined stems. Rose thorns crept along the bottom and up both sides; two blood red roses met at the top. Every letter was on the same parchment, all began "mon chéri Tommy", and they were signed "votre fille Éloïse". Even the most cursory of glances showed that the writer was—in good, but not perfect, English—baring her heart to a man she didn't know, and that she was professing her undying love to Tommy. The only envelope, which was also pink and bordered with thorns and roses, had the tell-tale imprint of an owl's beak, which Dennis had magically highlighted.

I sighed.

The final item in my tray was a hefty-looking report. Beneath the Auror Office symbol was a second symbol—a green circle containing a green caduceus—and beneath that the words Emergency Healer Team.

With a sinking feeling, I picked up the Healer's report. Dacia Skoll had, as usual, gone into an enormous amount of detail; I expected nothing else. Her reports were always comprehensive, sometimes to the point of being incomprehensible to a lay-person. This one was certainly long and complex. I flicked through the first few pages, which carefully detailed every severed bone, muscle, vein, and organ, and realised that it would be a very long read. Fortunately, like Dennis, she had scribbled a short note, which she had pinned inside the cover.

_Bobbie,_

_It's 6:30am, and I'm going home to bed._

_The Muggle police now have the remains and a copy of the edited (Muggle-friendly) version of my report (which is also appendix B of this report). It tells them nothing but the blatantly obvious: Death was a result of exsanguination caused by the sudden severing of the torso. I have no doubt that the top half of the remains (wherever they are) cannot possibly be alive. The cut line through the abdomen is straight and clean. Death would have been instantaneous._

_The victim is definitely Tommy Harris. The hair samples Anne took from both the changing room and his home match the blood from the remains. This looks very much like a death by Splinching. I can't rule out a cutting charm until I carry out more tests. However I believe that, if he'd been cut in half by a spell, there would be a lot more blood at the scene. Anne may have more for you._

_If you need anything more from me, call. Otherwise, I'll check in at 16:00 to make sure everything is satisfactory._

_Dacia_

'Damn,' I said loudly.

Harry chose that exact moment to walk through my door. It was the first time I'd seen him in a year, but he hadn't changed. He'd unfastened the top button of his white shirt and, as a consequence, his grey-check tie was slightly askew. He'd discarded the jacket of his charcoal grey suit, and all five buttons of his collared waistcoat were buttoned, but the off centre tie was enough to make him look slightly dishevelled. It was a gift he had; almost tidy was the best he could ever achieve.

'Are you okay, Bobbie?' he asked. 'It must be difficult, coming back from maternity leave and jumping straight into a case.'

'I'm fine, although I'm certainly not used to the hours,' I admitted. 'And I miss Susan and Lavender. But I'll settle back into the swing of things soon enough, Harry. How was the World Cup? Ollie wanted to go, but he was needed at Puddlemere. He was really jealous.'

'It was great. We saw some brilliant games,' said Harry. 'Although why the Prophet thought it was a good idea to stick Ginny and Rita in the same commentary box for the final I have no idea.' He gave a rueful grin. 'Instead of concentrating on watching the final I spent half of the game worrying about what was happening in the press box. I know that "Head Auror's wife murders gossip columnist" is a headline Rita would love to write. But she wouldn't want it as her epitaph.'

'So the newspaper reports were true, Ginny hexed her?' I asked.

'Yes,' Harry admitted. 'Rita deserved it. She'd been making ridiculous comments about me, Ginny, and the Weasleys for days. And then she decided to pick on Neville, Hannah, and the others. I think her comments about Luna and the twins were the final straw. Fortunately, a disagreement between two Daily Prophet reporters in a foreign country is something for the Prophet to deal with.' He stopped and looked serious. Waving his hand, he brushed the small talk aside. 'Are you dealing with a murder, Bobbie? Do I need to allocate more Aurors to this case?'

'I don't think so,' I told him. 'I've got Dacia's report here, if you want to read it,' I added, lifting her report from my in tray.

He looked at the thick file I was waving at him and smiled. 'Not really,' he admitted. 'Can you summarise it?'

'I haven't been in the office long enough to read it all myself,' I admitted. 'It's looking very much like a death by Splinching.' I shuddered at the thought. 'I never liked being taken anywhere by Side-along myself, particularly as Portkeys are almost foolproof.' I admitted. 'There's a chance that it could have been deliberate, so we'll need to find whoever did it, but...' I shrugged.

Harry nodded sympathetically. 'Any problems with the local police?' he asked.

I shook my head. 'No, I knew one of the uniforms from my old days at Kensington and Chelsea. We lost touch about six years ago. She was helpful, and Dennis managed to persuade the man in charge, Bradstreet, to let us work with him. I think it would be a good idea to pass on our thanks to the Commissioner,' I stood. 'I was just going to take a walk along the corridor to re-examine the crime scene. Do you want to come with me?'

'I'll take a look, if you don't mind,' said Harry, nodding. 'But I won't interfere unless you want me to.'

He opened my office door, waited for me to stand, and motioned for me to go first. We walked in silence along to the Imager's Office. Don Dunbar's desk was the only one occupied. He looked tired and very worried when I walked in. His expression changed to one of sheer terror when Harry followed me through the door.

'Sorry, sir,' he said immediately. 'I've learned my lesson. It won't happen again!'

Harry looked at me for an explanation. I shrugged. I didn't really know Don Dunbar; he was a new recruit who'd joined the Imagers while I had been on maternity leave. I'd shaken his hand for the first time the previous day, and I had no idea what he was apologising for.

'What's happened, Don?' I asked.

Before he could reply, Dennis Creevey entered the office from one of the other doors; the one marked "Active Image – Crime Scene – Authorised Personnel Only."

'I thought I heard voices,' Dennis said cheerfully. 'You're in luck, Don. Fenella has fixed it.'

'Fixed what?' Harry asked.

'I photographed both the crime scene and then went to the victim's flat,' Don admitted unhappily. 'But I forgot to change plates after leaving the crime scene. I double exposed the crime scene with the image of the victim's lounge.'

Fenella Boot, the head of the Imager Section, appeared behind Dennis Creevey. A six-footer, she towered over the little Auror, her new assistant, and Harry. Fenella's normally well-coiffured thick black hair was unusually unkempt; she looked very weary and extremely annoyed.

'Sheer incompetence' she told Don furiously.

Harry and I stared at her in surprise. Fenella never got angry; she was the meekest person in the Auror Office.

'It's taken me three hours to fix a mistake that I haven't made since I was twelve! Separating the images should have been easy, but no! You tried to fix it yourself and ended up melding them together.' She turned to Harry and me. 'I've finally managed to get a working image for you.' She again glared at Don Dunbar. 'I could have fixed it in ten minutes if i_he_/i hadn't interfered.'

Harry turned to Don and fixed the white-faced young man with the steely gaze that made many felons surrender immediately. 'If you make a mistake, and you don't know how to fix it yourself, admit it and get help. Don't try to cover it up,' he told the young man firmly.

'Yes, sir,' said Don, shaking.

'And my name is Harry, use it,' Harry ordered.

'Yes, sir… Harry.'

'Harry hasn't been knighted,' Dennis observed dryly.

The colour had drained from the young Imager's face and he was squirming uncomfortably. Many witches and wizards do when they're facing Harry. It's really quite amusing to watch, but I was beginning to feel sorry for him.

'Can we go through?' I asked Fenella. She nodded and stepped aside. Harry and I followed Dennis into the room, into the crime scene image. Harry looked around in interest, and then hunkered down to look at the lower torso and legs that lay on the floor.

'Did you see my note?' Dennis asked me.

'Yes,' I told him. 'I think I know where you're going with this, Dennis, and I'm very much afraid you may be right.'

I walked over to the make-up table, looked at the paltry pile of fan-mail, and nodded to Dennis. He pulled out his wand and manipulated the Image. He pulled the Image of the letter from the pile of envelopes and showed it to Harry.

'Delivered by owl,' Harry observed. 'What does it say on the back?' he peered closely at the image Den was levitating in front of him.

'Réponse payee. It means reply paid,' said Dennis, providing a translation. 'The police SOCO team took notice of it, too, because of the complete lack of any stamps on it.'

Harry peered at the envelope. 'You think it's from a French witch?'

Dennis nodded.

'And there were five more letters at the victim's flat, all on the same paper, so likely from the same person,' I told Harry.

'What's your theory?' Harry asked.

We told him.

'I've contacted the Département de la Justice Magique in Paris. I was going to take a look around the Image of Mr Harris's apartment to see if the other envelopes were still in there somewhere. Neither the police nor Stan found them, but I think we should double check. The letter writer, Éloïse, may have written an address on one of them'

'Good thinking, Den,' I said. 'It may not be her, of course, but I think you should keep following that lead. I'll take a look at the other evidence, see if there's anything else of interest.'

* * *

It was a little after two, and I was still reading through Muggle witness statements did nothing other than confirm that our suspicions were correct. The lack of any alternative exit, the people in the corridor who swore that no one had entered, and the reports of a pop, or a bang all confirmed Anne's analysis. Someone had Apparated into and Disapparated out from the room leaving half a corpse behind them. Then Dennis dashed into my office.

'The chef du Bureau des Aurors has just contacted Harry,' he said. 'He believes that one of their Aurors has found "the other half of our puzzle." I'm about to arrange a Portkey to Paris, do you want to come with me?'

'Thanks, but no thanks. Take Stan with you,' I ordered. 'Where is he? I haven't seen him today.'

'I think he scored with DC Smith last night,' said Dennis carefully. 'At least, according to Don they left the crime scene together, but I got the impression she didn't like him, so I'm not sure.' He scratched his head as he thought. 'Don doesn't seem to notice much, which is odd. I'd have though that an Imager wouldn't miss anything, I know Fenella doesn't. Last night Stan told me that he had a date with a Japanese girl today. It's his day off, so I told him that we wouldn't call him in unless we needed him.'

'Susan's left us! Lavender's sailing around the Mediterranean with Mark and Violet, and Camilia and Polly are in the USA helping out the Federal Bureau of Illumination,' I said. 'You're not going to Paris alone, Dennis, and I've promised Ollie that I'll be home in time to put the kids to bed. Stan can take the late shift. He's all we have. Keep me posted.'

'Will do,' Dennis promised.


	4. On the Ball

**On the Ball**

Monsieur and Madame Joubert were a well-to-do middle-class couple. The decor in their appartement, and it's location in Neuilly-sur-Seine, indicated that they had good taste and an income to match. My unexpected visit had shattered their bourgeois lives. Their anxiety had begun when I'd arrived.

They had filed a simple missing person's report with le Département de la Justice Magique. This was a brave move in itself, as a visit from a Gendarme de la Justice Magique would doubtless cause consternation amongst their little community. To their horror, instead of a Gendarme Magique, they found themselves dealing with someone from the Bureau des Aurors. They certainly weren't the sort of people who were visited by an Auror.

Their story should have been simple. The Jouberts were worried parents. Their daughter, Éloïse, had left home the previous evening. She had Apparated across Paris to visit her friend Anaïse, or so she'd told them. At noon—when she still hadn't returned home—the Jouberts had contacted Anaïse, and discovered that their daughter had lied to them.

'So unlike her,' Mme. Joubert murmured with the naïvety shown by all parents.

I checked their daughter's bedroom and found the walls plastered with posters of the murder victim—Tommy Harris—whose details had been sent through from London. When I returned to their immaculate lounge, my worry must have been visible on my face. I watched as their understandable parental concern soared above clouds of anxiety to reach the nausea-inducing heights of fear. It was difficult for me to remain dispassionate; I could see that they were a nice and normal couple caught up in a nightmare of worry.

They asked me several times, but I could not tell them why an Auror was investigating a simple missing person's report. My unavoidable evasiveness simply lifted them to an even higher state of dread. They thought that their daughter was dead, but they didn't dare ask.

'I don't know where she is,' I told them. 'Or if she is safe. But we will try to find her for you. Do you have a photograph?' The snapshot they handed to me showed an elfin-featured ingénue whose black hair was cut into a bob.

It was a little after three when the urgent message arrived, saving me from their questioning. Excusing myself from their company, I assured them that there was probably nothing to worry about. I didn't believe my own words, but what else could I say?

On leaving the Jouberts, I Apparated to the cimetière de Montmartre. A quiet location, it was within easy walking distance to the crime scene and was therefore an obvious choice for me. After making my way through the gravestones and stepping out onto Rue Caulaincourt, I lit a cigarette. I needed something to suppress the increasing sense of dread broiling in my heart.

I rechecked the message on my Mirrorphone. My destination was the Allée du Midi, a narrow, cobbled lane within the tangled network of streets between the cemetery and the Basilique du Sacré Cœur de Montmartre. The alley wasn't far from the cemetery, and it proved very easy to find; the entrance was partly blocked by police cars.

A small white Citroën in the blue stripe livery of the Police Municipale was, with some reluctance, moving out from the entrance. The much larger Renault of the Police Nationale, its sirens still blaring importantly, was attempting to force its way past.

As I strolled up the hill, it was obvious that I was already walking into a jurisdictional argument. This was a case for the Police Nationale and they would, no doubt, be flexing their muscles. I watched as the Citroën reversed back into the entrance in order to once again block the road.

Two men climbed out from the Citroën. One was barely out of his teens; the other's teenage years could only be a distant memory to him. The youngster was lean and, from the outside, rather attractive. Inside, however, I could sense that he was a seething mess of bigotry and misogyny. He was tense, and boiling with indignation. The older man, the driver, was around fifty. Short and stout, he reminded me a little of Papa, and not only from the outside.

Both men wore dark blue blouson jackets and baseball caps, and both items of clothing bore the legend Police Municipale in large letters. I continued up the hill, quickening my pace and striding determinedly towards them. As I approached, they took a long, assessing look at me. I was only a couple of metres away from their car when the younger man took action. He stepped forward and firmly raised his hand.

'Sorry, mademoiselle, we are Police Municipale; this road is closed. There has been a murder,' he told me. He had the strutting self-importance of a small-minded man with a large ego.

I considered sarcasm. Both men were in uniform, and they were standing next to a Police Municipale car, yet the young fool felt the need to formally identify himself as he attempted to impose his will on me.

'She has eyes, Claude, very pretty blue eyes,' the older man said.

The bemused tolerance in his voice was not directed me, but towards his bumptious young companion. A glance at his epaulettes showed me that the older man was a Gardien Principal, and the more senior of the two.

'I think we may assume she knows who we are! And yet still she approaches us,' His firm words were a relatively gentle rebuke to Claude. He then turned to me and smiled. 'Can we help you, mademoiselle?' he asked politely.

I sucked in a final lung-full of smoke, dropped the still smouldering remains of my Gitanes onto the pavement, and ground it out with the toe of my Christian Louboutin's. After dismissively blowing the smoke towards the younger man, I turned to speak to his companion.

'It seems your young friend is new to the job, Gardien Principal,' I told the stout little man. 'I have good news; I am here to help you. Perhaps I can make your day a most memorable one.'

The younger man stared at me, unsure what to think, but his older and more experienced colleague remained warily professional. I attempted to ingratiate myself with the Gardien Principal by offering him the smile that melts many men's hearts. He merely acknowledged it politely. I tried again.

'I watched the Police Nationale chase you from your position, Gardien Principal. No doubt they told you that this is a job for the big boys,' I said.

I could see that the younger man was beginning to lose his temper, and I knew I'd been right to direct my comments to his companion. I carefully opened my jacket and pulled out my wallet.

'I am with the Direction centrale du Renseignement intérieur,' I told him, flipping open the wallet and showing him the carte d'identité I used when among Muggles. 'I am here to chase the Police Nationale from the crime scene. Would you like me to tell them that they are wrong, and this is, in fact, a job for the little girls?'

The older man laughed, looked down at the card, and looked back up in surprise. 'Never have I seen so chic an officer of the DCRI,' he told me.

'Thank you,' I said.

He reached forwards, and I allowed him to take the wallet from me. I watched as he scrutinised it with understandable suspicion. While the Gardien Principal carefully examined my credentials, his colleague was carnally examining my figure. I ignored him and simply waited for the older man. When he finally closed the wallet, I held out my hand.

'Your credentials are in order, mademoiselle,' he told me as he handed me my wallet.

'Thank you. A few questions, if I may, Gardien Principal,' I said. 'The radio report said that someone had found half of a body in a rented room, is this correct?'

The portly little man nodded.

'And it was the top half?'

He nodded again. 'Claude here lost his breakfast,' he said cheerfully. 'And one as beautiful as you should not see such things.'

'It is my job to see such things,' I told him. 'But thank you for your concern, and for the compliment. If Claude saw the corpse, then I assume that you did, too? You were first on the scene?'

'We were,' he told me. 'The body was discovered, and the alarm was raised, by the owner of the apartment. She went in to clean the place, and found the remains. She ran outside and flagged us down. It was simply coincidence, we had been dealing with a parking dispute in the neighbourhood. I verified the woman's story, and called for the Nationale. They were not grateful.'

He gestured over his shoulder, and I looked down the cobbled street. The road was little wider than a car, and it was flanked by two narrow granite-flagged footways. The Allée du Midi was a terrace of three, four, and five story apartments. The Police Nationale Renault I'd seen entering the alley had joined two similar vehicles outside a grey-painted three-storey property.

I pulled out my Mirrorphone and flicked it onto the image the British Auror Office had sent to the Bureau des Aurors. 'Was this the man?' I asked, showing the Gardien Principal the mirror.

He looked closely at the image.

'I believe so,' he said. 'What do you think, Claude?'

The younger man walked around the car and looked.

'Yes,' Claude told me. He suddenly turned very pale. 'That's him.'

'The woman who found the body, do you know her name?' I asked the Gardien Principal.

'Madame Thibault,' he told me promptly. 'She lives on the ground floor, below the apartments. She rents them out, usually to foreign tourists. But, before the Police Nationale arrived, she told me that the room had been taken by a young Parisienne. She told us that this woman had an assignation,' he shrugged. 'It may be true. Perhaps she was waiting for her lover, and this is a crime of passion.'

'Thank you both. I will commend you to my superiors,' I said.

I looked along the alley to the cluster of cars. There was no ambulance, not yet. I smiled at the portly little man.

'I am sure that the Police Nationale have told you to let no one through, but please may I pass, Gardien Principal? I do not wish to pull rank on you. I want to save that pleasure for the Police Nationale.'

The man chuckled. 'You are DCRI, and I am not a fool,' he said. He looked along the Allée du Midi, to where two young men wearing the uniform calots and bomber jackets of the Police Nationale were now standing and watching us. 'Will you need any assistance?'

'No, they are only men,' I told him. 'And they are young. I can deal with them.'

He chuckled again, stepped aside, and allowed me to pass. As I walked down the alley, I wondered whether to inform London, or to wait. Should I take the two officers at their word, or confirm the identity of the corpse with my own eyes. I turned back to the Gardien Principal. Catching his eyes, I drew my hand across my stomach from hip to hip, indicating the line where the British half of the corpse had been sliced in two. My new friend nodded.

_'They both identified the victim from the photograph and even if they hadn't, what are the chances of the bottom half of a body being found in London and twelve hours later the top half of a different body—each guillotined in half at the navel—being found in Paris?'_ I asked myself. Almost none, I decided. I pulled out my mirrorphone and looked down into it.

'Bureau des Aurors,' I said.

'Bureau des Aurors,' was the instant reply.

'Contact the Auror Office in London,' I said. 'It seems very likely that we have the other half of their puzzle. Also, can someone ensure that no one from the Police de Moldue contact Interpol. I believe it would be as well if the British Muggle Police know nothing of this discovery. It will merely complicate matters on both sides of la Manche.'

When I looked up from my Mirrorphone, two Police Nationale officers were almost upon me. From their epaulettes, I could tell that both were Gardien de la paix. I tried to remember my training regarding the Police Nationale. We were in the 18th Arrondissement, and there were, so far as I could see, no unmarked cars at the scene. I was confident that I knew which police Division I was in, and it seemed that, as yet, there was no one on scene from la Brigade criminelle.

'You are from the second Division de police judiciaire,' I announced. 'Have you, or your superiors, contacted "la Crim" yet? If you haven't, don't bother. I am DCRI! I am now in control of this crime scene.'

'You?' the older of the two asked in disbelief. 'I may have to teach you some manners, little girl.'

'I am DCRI,' I told them, holding out my wallet. 'I have not yet seen the body, and I already know more about this crime than you! Your victim is an Englishman, and the British already know this. They will be here soon. I want to speak to whoever is in charge here, and I want to do it now.' The older of the two officers sneered dismissively; his companion merely grinned. Being polite had not worked, so I turned on my inner-Veela.

'I said now!' I ordered.

I gave them the briefest of glimpses of my sharp beak and scaly wings. It was enough.

The expression on the face of the younger of the two was one of abject fear. He immediately turned and ran off to do my bidding. Behind me, I heard my new friend the Gardien Principal laugh. The other man stared at me.

'If you do not obey me, you will be hearing from your superiors,' I told him. 'I want everyone cleared from the building, and I want to speak to the woman who found the body, Madame Thibault.'

* * *

Although she had only three rooms to rent in her own house, Madame Thibault insisted on being addressed as "concierge". Outwardly she was old, frail, and a little deaf. The Police Nationale Lieutenant, who was the highest ranked officer at the scene, had annoyed her by assuming that her deafness and decrepitude equated to stupidity.

It was obvious that, in fact, she was guillotine sharp and as unstoppable as the Seine. Unfortunately, she was also extremely wary of pretty young mademoiselles. As a consequence I had to tread carefully. I took the easy option, and began our conversation by loudly denigrating all men, Lieutenants of the Police Nationale in particular.

It wasn't too long before we were on first name terms and sipping café like old friends. I patiently waited until my new friend Agnès Thibauld had finished telling me about her late husband and widely scattered children and grandchildren before asking about the girl who had rented the room. When Agnès had finally started talking, there was no stopping her.

'A nice girl,' Agnès told me, 'not as tall as you are and, although she was chic, she was not as chic as you. She was polite and pleasant. I cannot believe that she would do such a thing. But even were she so wicked, I cannot conceive of any way she i_could_/i have done such a thing. Where is the rest of him? I will have nightmares for weeks!'

I commiserated with her, and then asked who the girl was and how she had paid for the room.

Agnès leaned forward as though imparting a confidence. 'She paid cash and gave me one hundred Euros more than I'd asked for.' The elderly lady looked around the room before continuing. 'It was as though she never handled money, Gabrielle. She seemed to have no concept of the value of the cash she carried. I gave it back to her, of course, and warned her. "So much cash! You must be careful, Éloïse," I told her.

'Merde,' I said as I received what appeared to be final confirmation. I hadn't been expecting to hear the name. I'd assumed that, even if it was the girl, she would have used an alias. 'Éloïse, she called herself Éloïse?' I asked.

'Éloïse Joubert,' Mme. Thibauld confirmed. 'You know her?'

I shook my head sadly. 'No, but a young woman named Éloïse Joubert has been reported missing,' I said. 'I have spoken to her parents. They are worried about her.' I reached into my bag and pulled out the photograph M. and Mme. Joubert had given me.

'That is her,' Agnès told me sadly. 'Children are both a blessing and a curse. I do not believe that someone so polite and innocent as petite Éloïse would cut a man in half. I cannot believe that she is evil.' She paused, and looked carefully into my face. 'Perhaps he deserved it,' she added stoutly. 'Some men are beasts.'

'Yes!' I nodded.

I was about to leave, to visit the room where the body still lay, when I heard raised voices coming from the hallway. With a heavy heart, and with the frightened faces of M. and Mme. Joubert foremost in my thoughts, I excused myself and left Agnès alone in her sitting room.

I stepped out into the hallway to see the back of the Police Lieutenant. He was standing in the doorway, flanked by two of his officers, and was swearing at someone outside in the street.

The Lieutenant had protested loudly when I had tried to remove him from the crime scene. He had spent several minutes examining my credentials. I tried to charm him, but he was unmoved. Even though he could find no fault with my carte d'identité, it wasn't until I threatened to contact the Préfet de Police that he finally acquiesced to my demand to take control.

'Do you speak English? Someone should be expecting us,' a man said to the Lieutenant. He spoke in that loud, slow and careful English the British use when speaking to foreigners.

_'If you don't stop swearing at us, Lieutenant, I will report you to your superiors,'_ a second man said. He spoke good, if slightly accented French. The Lieutenant, who had apparently assumed that neither man spoke our mother tongue, immediately broke off his vile tirade.

I instantly recognised the voice of the second Englishman, and my heart missed a beat. I pulled out my Mirrorphone. 'Bureau des Aurors,' I said quietly.

'Bureau des Aurors,' was the instant reply.

'Call the Préfet de Police,' I said, speaking as loudly as I could. 'The Police Lieutenant is making a nuisance of himself, and he is insulting our British guests; I want him removed from the building, now. Please make certain that the Préfet is informed of the rudeness and incompetence of this officer and ensure that the officer is ordered to obey me.'

As I spoke, the Lieutenant turned to stare his hatred at me. I stared back, unmoved, and he stepped aside to allow the two Englishmen to enter. The first was tall and fair, and gorgeous on the outside. He gave me a smile which, he hoped, would melt my heart. It was a good smile, but I could sense the clouds of despair and high barricades within him. The second was a man I had not seen for many years. He looked a little older, but inside he was the same honest and honourable man I had always known.

The Lieutenant's phone rang. As he answered it, I turned to greet the two Englishmen.

'Bonjour, mon chéri Denis.' I used, as I always had, the French pronunciation of his name.

'Bonjour, Gabi,' he replied with the shy smile and reserved politeness I had always loved. 'Tu êtes plus belle que jamais.'

'Merci,' I told him. So, he still thought me beautiful. I was certain that he was married, but I needed to confirm it. 'Ma soeur m'a dit que tu êtes marié,' I said.

'Oui,' he said, radiating happiness.

His joy should have broken my heart, but it did not. He was filled with a relaxed contentment, something I'd been unable to give him. Unable to stop myself, I walked over, bent forwards, kissed him on each cheek, and embraced him. His companion looked at me with a mix of lust and hope, and I realised that the tall man was the sort of Englishman who would misinterpret a simple Gallic greeting as something else. I simply shook his hand.

'Congratulations, Denis,' I said, reverting to English. 'Your wife is lucky to have you. But aren't you going to introduce me to your companion?'

'Gabi, this is Auror Stan Cresswell,' Dennis told me. He turned to his companion. 'Stan, meet Gabrielle Delacour from le Bureau des Aurors de France,' he said.

'I think I'll put in for a transfer to Paris,' Stan said, imbuing his words with an almost nauseating surfeit of charm.

'You'd be rejected, Stan,' I told him, not even attempting to hide my annoyance at his attempts to flirt with me. 'Because, unlike mon chéri Denis, you are not qualified to be an Auror in France.'

'You need to speak the language, Stan,' Dennis told him quietly. He turned his attention back to me. Dennis' smile was bittersweet, filled with fond yesterdays and lost tomorrows. 'I'd really like to practice my French, Gabi. But, in deference to Stan, is it okay if we stick to English?'

'Oui, bien sûr,' I replied instantly.

His laughter brought joy to my ears.

While we had been talking, the Police Lieutenant had been protesting to his superiors. I heard him exclaim, 'Follow i_her_/i orders!' in disbelief before the call was ended. I approached him the moment he finished speaking.

'Lieutenant,' I told him, 'no doubt you have now been apprised of the international aspect of this investigation. You and your men will step outside. Your men will guard the door. You, however, will walk along to the end of the road. Once there, you will tell the two Police Municipale officers that, although you are barely qualified to do so, mademoiselle Delacour of the DCRI has directed you to take over from them, as i_they_/i no doubt have something important to do. You will use those exact words, and you will not be rude to them. Do you understand?'

'Yes, mademoiselle,' he told me through clenched teeth.

We watched the three policemen depart from building, and I closed the door behind them.

'I hope that this is, in fact, your corpse, Denis,' I said. 'I will be in a lot of trouble if we have to return jurisdiction to the Police de Moldue—the Muggle police.'

'Sometimes, no matter how polite you are, they won't cooperate,' said Dennis consolingly. He glanced towards the concierge's apartment. 'There's still someone in that room, who is it? What have you got for us?'

'The building's owner, Madame Thibauld, is still here, but no one else,' I looked sadly down at him. 'I believe we are dealing with a tragedy, not a mystery, Denis. The upper half of the body is upstairs, in a room which was being rented by a seventeen-year-old witch. Her name is…'

Dennis' face fell as I spoke. 'Éloïse?' he asked sadly.

'Éloïse Joubert,' I confirmed.


	5. On the Prowl

**On the Prowl**

It took ten minutes for Stan to answer my call. When he did, he was definitely shirtless. I suspected that he was naked.

'Sorry, Den, I was busy,' he said, smirking. He turned his Mirrorphone to the side. The bespectacled girl lying on the bed squealed, covered her breasts, and turned away. I only got the briefest of glimpses of her, but there was no doubt that she was naked. As he turned the phone back to show the self-satisfied smirk on his face, the girl began to berate him; at least, from her tone I assumed that she was berating him. I couldn't be certain, because she was speaking what I assumed to be Japanese.

'Get dressed, and get into the office,' I told him. 'The moment you get here, we're going to Paris.'

'Paris!' he said. 'I'm going to Paris, Hoshi. I'll be there as soon as I can, Dennis.'

I'd moved into the Muggle Interface Team when Bobbie went on maternity leave. At first I'd been working with Lavender, whose inane chatter would drive any man demented and Camelia, who—presumably because of centuries of practice dealing with annoying people—was able to ignore her. When Lavender took a month's holiday, and Camelia was sent to the USA with Polly, I'd looked forward to working with Stan. Unfortunately, after two weeks of listening to sexually charged critiques of every girl he saw and graphic descriptions of his sex life, I found myself missing Lavender!

He was well aware that his blow-by-blow accounts of his every sexual encounter bothered me. I wondered if that was why he did it, or if he really did think I was jealous. I'd made the mistake of telling him that I'd only had five girlfriends, including my wife, and that I'd only slept with three of them. He seemed to think I was missing out, that I was jealous, or that I thought sex was wrong.

I'd told him on many occasions that I wasn't jealous and that the only time sex was wrong was when there was no consent from one of the people involved. I'd explained that I simply wasn't interested, and I saw no reason for him to keep score. He didn't believe me. He didn't believe me when I told him that I was happy to be "tied to one woman", as he put it, either.

Clenching my teeth, I tried to concentrate on the positives of my newest partner. Stan was a good Auror. He was a competent investigator who didn't miss much; on a few occasions he'd spotted things I'd missed. This was the first time his habit of chasing every pretty girl he saw had interfered with his work, and despite this I knew that he would get into the office as soon as he could.

Sighing, I picked up the case file and took the express lift to the Muggle car park where the Auror Office kept a small fleet of cars. When I left the lift, I thumbed the button on the car keys.

The car I'd allocated to myself was parked next to Bobbie's. Hers was a black Range Rover Sport. It was several years old but, because of the various Charms on it, it remained in pristine condition. There were several identical vehicles in the car park, including Harry's. I ignored them. I'd chosen to take one of the two Range Rover Evoques, which we'd recently acquired. Unlike the rest of the Auror Office fleet, the Evoques were white.

I placed my Mirrorphone into the cradle on the dashboard and dropped the case file onto the passenger seat. From the position of the driver's seat, it seemed likely that Terry Boot—a man even taller than his wife—had been the last person to use the car. I could barely see through the windscreen, and my feet were almost a foot away from the pedals. I had only just finished adjusting the seat and mirrors when the passenger door opened.

'I'm seeing Hoshi again tomorrow, if we get back in time. She wants me to show her friends around Camden. And I've arranged to meet Tallulah the following day,' Stan told me smugly. 'I hope this mission isn't going to interfere with my sex life too much. I'm supposed to be on leave today and for the next three days!'

I replied with a disinterested grunt, and concentrated on fastening my seatbelt.

'Why are we going to Paris?' Stan asked. 'Will we have time to visit the Folies Bergère or the Moulin Rouge?'

'The Bureau des Aurors have contacted us,' I said. 'They've found the other half of the body. We'll be working for as long as it takes, and when we're finished, I will be going straight home to my wife and daughter.'

'Boring,' Stan muttered.

I placed my finger on my Mirrorphone, 'Portkey Office,' I said.

'Portkey Office,' a bored-sounding young man said. When his face appeared in the mirror, his eyes widened and his boredom vanished. He had seen my uniform. 'Sir,' he added belatedly.

'Auror Dennis Creevey,' I said. 'We have an International Portkey Authorisation for Auror vehicle Alpha-Oscar-nine. You've been sent a destination for the Portkey, and you've had confirmation from le Département de la Justice Magique and Head Auror Potter.'

'I, er, one moment, sir,' the young man said, his face contorting in panic. His face vanished from the mirror, and I heard a muttered conversation in the background. Seconds later another face, this one grey-bearded and bespectacled, appeared.

'He's new! Can't get the staff these days,' the older man told me cheerfully. He turned his head to the side. 'Auror Office priority Portkeys are in the red tray marked "Auror Office priority", Ryan. It's not difficult!' He reached forwards and looked down at the message. 'You're going to a place called Mont-martry, Auror Creevey,' he told me. I winced at his pronunciation, which didn't improve as he continued. 'And your final destination is the Alley doo middy. I'm sending the directions to your Mirrorphone now. Your Portkey is authorised and is now active!' As he spoke, he reached forwards and activated the key.

Inside the car the steering wheel glowed, and I grabbed it. We vanished from the London car park in a ball of blue light.

When we landed in Paris the Range Rover bounced heavily on its suspension. Stan only just got his arms in front of his face in time to stop his head from hitting the dashboard. He swore.

'You should've fastened your seatbelt, Stan. International Portkeys can be a little bumpy,' I told him. 'You'd better fasten it now. We're dealing with Paris traffic, and in my experience that can be even bumpier.'

I looked at our surroundings, and then at my Mirrorphone. We were in a tiny parking space in a narrow alley. The route to the crime scene was shown as a green line on the map on my mirror. I turned on the car's engine noise and pulled out of the parking space. When I reached the Rue Caulaincourt, I turned right.

'Paris,' said Stan, peering excitedly through the car windows. 'Ever been, Den?'

'Not for several years,' I told him as we made our way up the wide main street.

'Cherchez la femme,' he said as we passed two attractive young women walking down the hill.

'You, of all people, don't need to come to Paris to do that, Stan,' I told him. He looked at me blankly. In the distance I could see a police car blocking the alley my Mirrorphone was directing us towards. 'You do know what "cherchez la femme" means, don't you?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'I've heard people say it. It's French, and femme means female or something like that, as for the rest…' He shrugged. 'Do i_you_/i know what it means?'

'Yes.' I nodded. 'Literally, it means looking for women,' I told him. 'Like I said, you don't need to come to Paris to do that.'

He chuckled.

I didn't try to explain the phrase further, to discuss the deeper meanings. It implies that if a man is behaving out of character, it's because he is either trying to cover up an affair with a woman or trying to impress a woman.

Stan grinned to himself, and I realised that the phrase had also applied to the nineteen-year-old me. Someone should have warned the young man who went on the first ever Anglo-French Auror Exchange Programme to be wary of "cherchez la femme."

'I hope the French Aurors can speak English,' Stan said. 'Do you know much French?'

'Un peu,' I told him as we approached the police car. 'This must be the place.'

A rather rotund middle-aged man in a uniform that bore the legend Police Municipale strolled slowly towards the car. I lowered my window. My action was redundant, of course, because he headed for Stan's side of the vehicle, not mine. I lowered Stan's window and leaned forwards so that he could see that I, not Stan, was the driver.

'Mon nom est Creevey, Sécurité britannique. Quelqu'un attend pour moi,' I told the man.

Reaching into my pocket I pulled out my Auror Identity Card, tapped it into the Security Service setting, and handed it to Stan, who showed it to the policeman.

'M I fife,' the portly man said in broken English as he examined the card. 'But you no James Bond!'

'Non, je suis MI _cinq_, Bond est MI _six_,' I said. It wasn't the first time. No one outside the UK, and not many people within it, seemed to know the difference. I wondered if real MI5 agents had the same problem.

He dismissed my words with a shrug so Gallic that it seemed to begin in his boots. 'La belle blonde est déjà là,' he told me.

_La belle blonde!_ My heart sank. I wondered if she'd asked for the assignment. But I realised that was ridiculous. We'd only told the French Ministry the name of the lead investigator, and that was Bobbie. Even if it was i_her_/i, she wouldn't be expecting to see me.'

'Gabrielle Delacour?' I asked. I was hoping he'd say no.

'Oui, la belle Gabrielle,' he told me. 'Vous la connaissez?'

'Oui, nous avons travaillé ensemble dans le passé,' I replied. He stepped aside and waved me past his police car while his young companion practised his frown on us.

'What was that all about?' Stan asked me.

'Nothing, really,' I said. 'He was joking about us not being James Bond, and it seems that the French Auror on the scene speaks very good English.

'Do you know this Gabriel bloke, then?'

'_Gabrielle_ isn't a bloke,' I said. 'Yes, I know her very well. At least I did, ten years ago.'

Stan's expression changed instantly. 'Did you know her i_intimately_/i? Is she one of the three?' he asked, as I'd known he would. Ignoring his question, I drove down the alley until the Police Nationale officers flagged us down.

* * *

Her white dress was patterned with black abstract symbols which gave the impression of fleurs-de-lis, although they weren't. Her coat was a tan leather creation with a rather impractical looking high collar, but it was not as impractical as her matching shoes. They added at least four inches to her height. Even in bare feet she was four inches taller than I was; in her heels she was almost as tall as Stan. She towered over me.

When we'd been together she'd always worn flats, and I suddenly realised that, although I'd tried, I couldn't actually blame her for everything—she had made some compromises for me. She'd always known that the height difference bothered me.

She called me her darling Denis, using the French pronunciation of my name, as she always had. I told her that she looked beautiful, because she did. She seemed to be happy to see me. I couldn't understand why. When we'd parted, ten years earlier—and it was almost exactly ten years, I realised with a start—we had both been in tears. The summer of 2004 was so long ago.

* * *

I'd learned to love the city she called home, but I didn't fit in. I would always be a foreigner, I knew that. I also knew that some of her friends called me "le petit rosbif," the little Englishman, and they laughed at us; not in front of i_her_/i, of course. But they underestimated my understanding of French, and I let them. _'I care not! They are jealous of our love!' Gabi had said when I told her._

Paris had been a great adventure; the highs were bright and stratospheric, the lows dark and subterranean. Despite everything, I remained the outsider, and not only in Gabi's circle of friends. The city, her beautiful city, could be stifling at times. Gabi didn't like my clothes or my tastes in Muggle music—"that terrible, depressing, din"—or my love of the hills and wild places of my home.

I'd always known that Paris could never be home to me, but it took a long time before it became obvious to me that, unlike her sister, Gabi could never leave France. She could not, it seemed to me, even leave Paris. She was born to be a Parisienne. My Gabi was still a city girl, stylish and sophisticated; she was happiest in company, at parties and in street cafes. She was happiest when she was elegantly dressed, looking her magnificent best. I, of course, had to dress the part, too. I had to play the part of the dapper little Englishman with his amusing accent.

I did my best. I played the part for her, but eventually realised that I couldn't sustain the act forever. She wanted me to change but, when I tried, she didn't like the new me. I think that, before we cried, we both tried to change. Finally, realisation struck. I would never be a Parisien; I was a country boy trapped in a city, a tea drinker in a place powered by coffee. I don't like espresso, and that is a criminal offence in Paris.

I was happiest in the hills, the open spaces; she hated them. She took me to Parc Oise-Pays de France, but even that was too rural for her. The only holiday we took together was in the bustle of Nice. I could appreciate the beauty of "la Basilique du Sacré Cœur", the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, but for someone used to a long, lonely windswept and sandy coastline, the rocky and crowded beaches of Nice were a nightmare. She could not appreciate the bleak beauty of the hills. On her one brief visit to my parent's house I took her to see High Force. It was raining, of course. "Rocks and water," she said dismissively. "Just like Nice, but less crowded," I told her. She disagreed, and that was when I realised we were doomed. "Stay in Paris, stay with me," she had said. "Come to England, come with me," I'd begged.

For almost two years she'd been my mademoiselle, but when I returned to the UK, it ended. We exchanged a few letters, each begging the other to move. She was given the opportunity to do as I had. She had the chance to carry out some of her Auror training in the UK. Her last letter to me was the one where she told me that she had turned that opportunity down. I didn't reply, what could I say?

* * *

Stan was positively drooling over her. I wanted to warn her, to let her know what he was like. It was none of my business, I reminded myself. I was married, I was a father. She was a free agent and she could make whatever choices she desired.

I pulled myself back to the present and turned to the business at hand. I asked the question, and got the answer I really didn't want to hear.

'We were right,' I told her sadly. 'I really hoped that we weren't. The victim had been receiving fan mail from a France, from a girl named Éloïse. From all the evidence we have...'

'It's death by Splinching, isn't it?' Stan announced. 'It's not a murder. It's an accident, something for the Sheriff's Office, and Magical Transportation, or whatever their French equivalent is. Case closed! We can go straight back home, unless this lovely lady would like to show me the sights of Paris.' He gave Gabi one of his best smiles.

Gabi turned to me and spoke in rapid French. I was a little rusty and had difficulty in keeping up.

'_Your colleague, does he speak French?_' she asked.

'_No, at least he says he doesn't,_' I told her.

'_His face is happy, Denis, but inside he is not happy at all. He is so unlike you. Your happiness shines like a beacon. You are happier even than when we were together, though something is worrying you._' She paused and stared at me. '_Is it me?_'

'_I don't think that worry is the right word,_' I said, smiling ruefully. It seemed that her ability to read people had improved, but it was not perfect. '_Seeing you has reminded me of the good times and the bad, Gabi. I'm not worried, I'm simply lost in might-have-beens._'

'_Your wife is a lucky woman,_' Gabi told me. '_I remember those times too, Denis, but I regret nothing. We are older; now we can be friends, not lovers._'

The smile which accompanied that simple statement lifted the burden of our shared past from me.

'_We can,_' I told her.

Turning to Stan and reverting to English she continued. 'You are right, Stan, and you are wrong. The Auror case is closed. Éloïse is guilty only of causing death by Splinching, of carrying out a dangerous International Side-along Apparition. But she thought that she was in love with this man, and she has killed him.' Her eyes widened and she stared into Stan's face. 'You know how much it hurts to lose someone you love, I see that.'

Stan bristled, and for a moment I glimpsed the darkness Gabi had seen behind his smile. He said nothing.

'So does Denis,' Gabi continued with barely a pause. 'He has come to terms with his loss. But even after all these years he still carries his brother in his heart, don't you?'

'Yes,' I admitted sadly.

'_Your companion, he has lost someone, too, but he has closed his heart to that loss,_' Gabi returned to French. 'iDo you know who?/i'

'Son père,' I said.

'Père is father, isn't it? Whose father?' Stan demanded. 'Will you both please stop talking French! Are you talking about me?'

I didn't reply, because I couldn't deny it, and didn't want to admit it.

He glared. 'We should leave! There's nothing more for us here.'

'This case is closed, and yet it is not, Stan,' Gabi said. 'The girl is missing. She has not returned home and her parents are worried. I, too, am worried. Her world has ended. I fear a second death. I have spoken to the witness but I have not, yet, been upstairs to see the body. We must look.'

She led us up a narrow staircase to the top floor. Two Police Nationale officers guarded the door, but it was only a moment's work for us to get past them.

The place stank of death. There was blood everywhere, and the upper half of Tommy Harris lay on a cheap rug at the foot of the bed. His arms had been carefully folded across his chest, and his eyes had been closed. Gabi and I crouched down to look at the body while Stan walked around the room, examining everything.

'Is that...' I began, pointing at Harris' forehead.

'Lipstick,' Gabi confirmed. 'And tears.' She pointed to a faint mark on his temple. 'She did this. She laid him out, and cried, and kissed him. She is désolé.'

'That's strange,' said Stan. He lifted a bundle of letters tied up in a ribbon. Pulling the topmost letter from the envelope, he scanned it. It's signed by Tommy Harris…' He glanced across at Harris' body and quickly read through the letter. 'It looks like he'd agreed to meet her! But nothing in London indicated that…' He stared at the letters. It was obvious that he knew that something was wrong, but he was unable to determine what. I stood and joined him.

A closer look at the open letter he still clutched in his hand was enough for me. The parchment was plain, but when I held it up to the light I could clearly see the watermark. 'Plume et Encre, Paris,' I said. 'What're the chances that a British Muggle singer wrote back to a French witch on parchment bought from a shop in magical Paris?' I squinted at the text. 'Using what looks to be an auto-dictation quill,' I added.

'None,' said Gabi as she joined us. Grabbing my hand in hers, she turned it to get a better view of the letter. I watched her eyes flick down the page. 'No Englishman wrote these words of love, not even a singer. I would stake my life on this! She thought he loved her. For her, it was a tryst! It is no wonder that her heart is broken.'

While Gabi and I examined the letters, Stan had resumed his search of the room.

'Damn!' he exclaimed. 'I think she's made a poison.' He lifted several vials from a dressing table covered in bottles.

'We have to find her,' I said.

'He was killed late last night.' Stan indicated the corpse and shrugged helplessly. 'She's had hours, Den. She's probably dead already. We're Aurors, not social workers; a suicidal French witch isn't our problem.'

Gabi strode up to him and slapped him, hard. 'Va te faire foutre! You should care more, you should have hope. She is not dead until we find a body!'

'Harry would want us to find her,' I told a stunned and silent Stan. 'And you know he would!' I added firmly. He managed to rein in his annoyance and look contrite.

'But she could be anywhere,' said Gabi helplessly.

'In her letters, she talked about the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and the beautiful view of Paris from it,' Stan reminded me. 'She went on and on about the romance of the place and how much she wanted him to see it.'

'Stan's right, Gabi,' I confirmed. 'In every letter she wrote to him she said that she wanted to take him to Sacré-Cœur. If she mentioned the place to him, could she have gone there?'

'Oui certainement!' Gabi exclaimed excitedly. 'Even this appartement tells us so!'

With a flamboyant gesture she pointed through the window. Following her gaze, I saw a fraction of a white dome—the Basilica.

'She rented this room, and it is within sight, within walking distance of the Basilique. She will be there, she i_must_/i be there! We must go, now!' said Gabi. She ran for the stairs. Stan and I followed.

Ignoring the startled police at the door, she led us along the narrow street. Within minutes we'd arrived at the steps that ran alongside the funiculaire.

'We must split up, use our Mirrorphones to contact each other,' she began.

'No,' I said. Opening my Auror wallet, I pulled out three soft liquorice-coloured plugs. 'Hear-ears, made exclusively for the Auror Office by Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Stick one of these in your ear, and we'll be able to talk to each other.'

'Merci,' she said. 'Stan, you will go to the bottom of the steps and work your way up through the park. Denis, come with me. You can start at the top and work down. I will look within the Basilica itself.'


	6. On the Edge

**On the Edge**

I didn't want to speak to her, but I had no one else to turn to. No one else knew the truth. Placing my thumb on the bottom of my Mirrorphone, I spoke her name.

'Solène.'

As I expected, there was no reply. I began a silent count. I'd reached thirty before her face appeared in the mirror. For Solène, that was a fast response.

'Bonjour, Anaïse,' she said rapidly. 'You look worried, is something wrong?' Her expression, like her question, was a little too eager. I should have realised then, but I didn't. Instead, I told her.

'Madame Joubert has contacted me, Solène,' I said. 'Éloïse is missing, she didn't return home last night! She told her mother that she was i_here_/i, that she was staying with me. But I haven't spoken to her for a week. I don't know where she is, and I am worried, please tell me that you know something.'

Solène smiled. It was not a nice smile.

My concerns about Éloïse's disappearance were eating at me from the inside, and Madame Joubert's call had filled me with dread. I had almost confessed, told her everything, but my shame at my actions had stilled my tongue. Although Solène had not known Éloïse for as long as I had, I expected her to share my worries. She did not. Instead of expressing concern, she laughed gleefully.

'Oh, the precious thing!' Solène said. 'She fell for it, didn't she? She has gone to London to visit her beloved.'

'It was a cruel trick,' I said. 'I am ashamed.'

'Ashamed? She's the one who should be ashamed! Fixated on a Muggle singer,' said Solène scornfully. 'An i_English_/i Muggle singer! All this letter-writing, it was ridiculous.'

'All?' I asked. 'How many more letters did she write?'

'Enough to make a fool of herself,' Solène told me gleefully. 'And thanks to you, Anaïse, I will be able to show everyone how foolish she's been. I must tell Orianne and Françoise; I must tell everyone, au revoir.'

'No,' I began, horrified, but her smiling face vanished from the mirror. It was then that I finally realised what a fool I'd been. This was no "little trick", Solène i_would_/i tell everyone what had happened, and Éloïse would be made a laughing stock.

I knew Solène well enough to know that she would not respond if I called her back. All I could do was stare into the deep, dark, pool of regret in front of me. It was a pool I had helped to dig and fill. Why? Why had I allowed Solène to persuade me to play such a terrible trick on my oldest friend?

What we'd done was unforgiveable, but I had to try to make amends. I picked up my Mirrorphone.

'Éloïse,' I said urgently.

There was no reply.

I tried again several times over the next few hours, but Éloïse did not respond to my increasingly desperate entreaties. Worried, I again tried Solène. She ignored me.

I paced across my room, trying to pluck up the courage to confess to Éloïse's parents. I wanted to tell them, but my cowardice bound me to silence. I was afraid of what Éloïse would think of me, of what everyone else would think of me, and afraid of my own secrets, which I knew Solène would make public if I spoke up.

Finally, I plucked up the courage to do it. When I picked up my Mirrorphone I was determined, unstoppable, but before I could speak Mme Joubert's name my own rang out from the mirror. For a second I thought it was Éloïse, so I answered eagerly.

'Bonjour, Éloïse. I'm so sorry, where are you?' I blurted the words desperately.

There was a moment's silence, and I found myself staring not at Éloïse, but at the startled face of Orianne.

'It's me,' she said. Orianne looked as unhappy as I felt. 'You sound truly worried about Éloïse! Is it true, Anaïse?' she asked. 'Is what Solène told me i_really_/i true?'

Unable to deny my involvement, I dully confirmed Solène's story.

Yes, I had told Solène of Éloïse's infatuation with the English Muggle singer whose only hit song, "Love across the World", had been her favourite. Éloïse had told me in confidence, and I had broken that confidence.

Yes, I had given Éloïse the parchment she'd used to write to her Muggle singer. Yes, I had enchanted the parchment, twinning it so that whatever Éloïse wrote was reproduced on a second sheet. I had read her first letter to the Englishman, and I had been embarrassed by what I'd done. I had not wanted to read more, I'd wanted to confess, but Solène had persuaded me to say nothing, to give the parchment to her.

'She wrote six letters to him,' Orianne told me.

'Six?' I said. 'Solène said there were more. I thought that Éloïse would give up after the first. Six? Really? I didn't think she was so obsessed.'

'You didn't know, did you?' Orianne asked carefully. Her face was white, and her lower lip trembled. 'Solène said you did, but I was certain that you wouldn't have agreed. Oh, Anaïse, like you, I am so worried. What will she do?'

'Agreed? Agreed to what? What are you talking about?' I asked.

'Solène wrote back,' Orianne told me, the words pouring from her like a torrent. 'She has just told me! Solène replied to Éloïse, pretending to be her Englishman, writing words of love in his name. She told me that you knew, that you had agreed! But I didn't believe her. She believes that Éloïse went to London. But if she did, then now she will know the truth, that it was all a trick. Is it true that she has vanished? Where will she go, Anaïse? What will our poor Éloïse do? You know her best.'

'Merde!' I said. 'Solène has made a fool of both Éloïse and me! Thank you for telling me, Orianne. Au revoir.'

Something inside me snapped. I had never been so angry. Breaking the connection, I Disapparated.

I don't know which of her many friends Solène was speaking to when I arrived in her bedroom, but she was smirking. I snatched her Mirrorphone from her hand and hurled it across the room. Because of the charms on it, it didn't break. Angered by that fact, I hit it with a Blasting Curse. She opened her mouth, whether to protest or to try to apologise I do not know, because I didn't give her the chance to speak. I slapped her as hard as I could. To my surprise, she began to cry.

'What have you done?' I demanded. She simply sobbed.

I heard hurried footsteps on the stairs so, with a wave of my wand, I sealed her door.

'What have you done to us, to Éloïse? You vile, manipulative bitch!' I shouted.

'It was a joke!' She protested through her tears. Even as she began to protest, the red mark of my hand appeared on her cheek. 'It was just a joke.'

'No,' I yelled, 'People laugh at jokes. This wasn't funny. You have created a tragedy, not a comedy, and I have helped you!' I slapped her again.

'Solène!' The anxious voice belonged to her father. He was hammering at her door. I Disapparated.

* * *

It was fortune, I suppose—whether good or bad I am not sure; not yet.

Éloïse and I had shared a favourite spot in Muggle Paris. It was a place on the steps leading up to Sacré-Cœur, and that's where I went when I left Solène. I swear that, when I Disapparated, I had no idea where I was going. I knew that I needed to be somewhere to think, and that my worries about Éloïse were uppermost on my mind. The steps were where my mind took me.

It was foolish of me. It was broad daylight, and the place was full of Muggles. My arrival by Apparition startled them. I knew that I'd be in trouble, but I didn't care, because my instantaneous arrival had startled Éloïse, too. She was standing no more than two metres from me, looking out over the city. She turned at the noise.

'Anaïse,' she said sadly when she saw me. 'It is fitting, I suppose. Tell my parents that I am sorry. It is the only way! I killed him. I killed my love.'

Lifting the vial, she drank.

'No!' I screamed, but I was too late. I dashed forwards in time to catch her and lower her gently to the ground. Everyone around me stared. I'm not sure what the Muggles thought was happening. Some screamed, while others applauded. Perhaps they thought they were watching some strange street show. That was when i_he_/i arrived.

The man who knelt opposite me was tall and blond, blue-eyed and good-looking. I thought, perhaps, he was German, but I soon discovered that he was an Englishman. He pulled a black leather wallet from inside the long black coat he wore. Opening the wallet, he plucked out something that looked like a small stone—a Beozar! I watched him force Éloïse's mouth open and push the stone down her throat. She wheezed. He turned to me.

'_You Apparated here, I heard you; you're a witch_,' he observed. '_Please tell me that you speak English_.'

'_A little_,' I said. I stared at the foam dribbling from my friend's mouth. She was so still. '_She is not dead? You save her?_'

'_Not yet! The magical hospital in Paris, where is it_?' he demanded.

I opened my mouth, trying to decide how to explain its location. He reached over Éloïse, put his hands on my cheeks, and forced me to look into his fierce and cold blue eyes. '_Don't try to tell me, we don't have time! I need to know now! Think about it, show me,_' he ordered.

I remembered the hospital foyer from my last visit, stared into his face, and opened my mind to him.

I was thinking only of Éloïse, and so I put up no barriers. I let him see everything. As he plucked the information he needed from my brain, he staggered; then the steel returned. '_Pick up the vial and follow me_,' he ordered. '_I'll probably need a translator_.'

Vial? It was a word I did not know. His downward glance showed me what he wanted. He lifted Éloïse, my pretty little friend, into his strong arms. I snatched up the almost empty éprouvette I'd seen her drink from. We both Disapparated, arriving in the hospital foyer side by side.

'_Auror emergency_,' he bellowed as we ran towards the reception desk. '_Poisoning_!'

I provided a translation, not that it was needed. A Healer came running, another following closely behind. There was a popping noise behind me as someone else Apparated into the hospital foyer.

'_I've pushed a Beozar down her throat,_' he said. '_And Anaïse has what's left of the poison._' He stared at me. '_Anaïse,_' he spoke my name again, pronouncing it perfectly. He looked terrified. His eyes had lost their coldness.

'Thank you,' the Healer said as I handed him the remnants of the poison my friend had imbibed. His colleague was already levitating Éloïse away on a stretcher. 'Don't worry, child, we will take care of her.'

'I should go with her,' I said. 'I am her friend.'

'I don't think so,' a woman said firmly. I pushed my glasses back up my nose and turned to see a woman who was everything I was not. The tall, slim, chic, and elegant blonde stood alongside a skinny little man with mousy brown hair; he was no taller than me.

'Gabrielle Delacour, Bureau des Aurors,' the woman announced. She sneered at me. 'You will come with me, mademoiselle. I have a lot of questions...'

The little man held up his hand and Auror Delacour fell silent. 'i_Is this her, Stan?/_i' the little man addressed the tall blond man who, like me, was following the Healers. '_Did she write the letters?_' He, too, was British.

It was then that the remaining pieces fell into place. I was facing Aurors from both Britain and France, and Éloïse's last words had been "I killed him. I killed my love." As I finally realised how huge this tragedy was, I moaned in despair. I had been foolish; my actions made me responsible. I had taken a life.

'Yes, this is all my fault,' I told the little man. He stepped forward, and I felt my knees buckle.

'_No, this isn't the girl we need to speak to. This is Anaïse Gras, a friend of Éloïse._' the blond man grabbed my waist and steadied me. '_She is prepared to take the blame..._' his voice broke, and he sobbed. The little Englishman looked up at his tall colleague in astonishment. 'She _blames herself, Den, but it's not her. Trust me. We're looking for another girl, someone called Solène Lapierre. She's the one who wrote the letters to Éloïse. Tell him where Solène lives, Anaïse. I can picture it, but I don't know the address._'

Wondering how he knew all this, I did as he asked.

'_I know the place. I will take you to her, Denis,_' Auror Delacour said. '_You can take her into our office for questioning, but I must go on. Someone must tell Éloïse's parents that we have found their daughter, it should be me. Afterwards, I will join you._' She turned to address the man who was still holding me. '_Stan, you will stay with mademoiselle Anaïse. Take her statement._'

'_Be gentle with Solène, Gabrielle,_' Stan said. I could feel the tension as he spoke. '_She is innocent, too. Or, rather, she's guilty only of being foolish, vain, and insensitive._' He shuddered.

'_A man is dead,_' Auror Delacour said.

'_Anaïse has already discovered this; that's why she just confessed. But Solène doesn't know, not yet,_' Stan told her. '_I know what they're going through, Gabi. Making them feel even guiltier won't help._'

'_C'mon, Gabi,_' said little Dennis. '_We can't do any more here. Stan gave her a Beozar; it's up to the Healers now. We have work to do. Keep us posted, Stan, and keep an eye on Éloïse and this girl... this... Anaïse._' He gave me a long, assessing look. '_And keep her safe. Don't... Just—don't!_'

'_She'll be safe with me,_' Stan promised, releasing me.

The French Auror held out her arm, and the little Englishman grabbed it. They Disapparated.

The Healers had left. We tried to follow them, but the staff would not allow it. I argued with them but they were insistent. It was obvious that Stan was unhappy with the Healers, so I translated for him.

'_We not family, we no go wiz 'er. Zey must... analyser... I not know zee word... examine? zee poison and make zee antidote._' I explained. '_Zee Beozar saved 'er life, but now zey need to... to repair 'er... to make 'er well. She is safe; you saved 'er life._'

'_I'm sorry, Anaïse, I am truly sorry. All I wanted was the location of this hospital._' There were tears in Stan's eyes as he spoke. There were tears in mine, too. Mine were for the tragedy, but he was an Auror; I wasn't sure why he was crying.

'De quoi—_What do you talk about? Why you sorry?_' I asked. I looked into his face, but he refused to meet my eyes. Instead, he looked around the foyer.

'_Café, floor three._' he said, pointing to the sign next to the lifts. '_I didn't know I could read French. I will buy you a coffee, Anaïse._'

'_Café eez a French word, and zee number ... trios..._/i' I painted a 3 in the air with my finger. '_...eez zee same in every language,_' I reminded him. I realised that I was smiling. How could I smile at such a time? I did not know, but he looked very sad, and I felt broken inside, so I let him escort me into the lift.

* * *

Despite his offer, Stan had only English Galleons, and he spoke no French. I ordered and paid for the coffees. I ordered us a patisserie each, too. Seeing Stan's horrified expression when he saw the tiny cup of black coffee I was given, I changed his order from un café to un café filtre.

'Merci,' he said, following me as I carried the tray across to a vacant table.

'Tu parle français?' I asked.

'Bonjour, salut, je m'excuse, merci. That's all the French I know,' he admitted. 'You i_were_/i asking me if I spoke French, weren't you?'

'Oui,' I said, smiling again. I was beginning to think that, so long as I talked to the handsome Englishman, I could keep my tears at bay.

He smiled. 'I know that one, too,' he admitted. He appeared nervous.

'You know café, also,' I said. 'And you know my name.' He was still refusing to look directly at me. Normally, I'd have remained quiet, simply watched. But my emotions were stretched to snapping. 'Why eez you so—triste—so—sad?' I asked. His face fell.

'Sorry—je m'excuse, Anaïse. You let me in. I saw more than I should, a lot more than you wanted me to see. All I wanted was the location of the hospital, but... It wasn't deliberate.' He placed his elbows on the table, covered his eyes with the palms of his hands, and sobbed. I reached across the table and wrapped my hand around his wrist.

'It is okay. I am zee imbécile,' I told him. 'I have caused so much sadness for Éloïse, 'er mozzer, and fazzer. I 'ave turned 'er into a killer and given you much pain. Will you 'ear my confession?'

'Your confession? You're worried about my pain?' he asked. After rubbing his eyes, he brought his hands down. He didn't look directly at me, but directed his remarks to my coffee.

'You don't know what happened in London. I know you don't, because I've seen what you i_do_/i know. I've seen your regret. Don't blame yourself, Anaïse. I will tell you what I know and why you are not to blame. Then, perhaps, you can forgive me for what I've done.'

'I do not understand...' I began. He held up his hand, closed his eyes, and spoke.

'You have known Éloïse for as long as you can remember. Do you really think that she would murder someone?'

'No,' I said, shaking my head. 'But she confess. She say zat she kill him.'

'You told Solène about Tommy,' his eyes remained closed. 'You told Solène because Éloïse had been teasing you. Éloïse said that your hair is untidy, that you are shy and plain and you don't even try to take care over your appearance. You were hurt. But you didn't argue with your friend, because you don't do that. Instead you told Solène. She suggested that you encourage Éloïse to write the first letter, and to enchant the paper to get a copy, so that you could tease her the way she had teased you.'

'How you know?' I began. His eyes still closed, he raised a hand. I fell silent.

'You let me in. You're still in my head, I know all of your secrets and worries.'

He paused, and placed his head in his hands.

'As you've just discovered, Solène wrote back to Éloïse, pretending to be Tommy Harris. I don't know why she did that, nor do you. I'm certain that Dennis and Gabrielle will find out. Éloïse went to London, expecting Tommy to be pleased to see her, to be expecting her. He wasn't. Until Éloïse recovers, we can only speculate, but… We believe that she planned to bring him to Paris. She tried, but he resisted, and he was Splinched. She left half of him in London. He must have died instantly.'

'Merde!' I said.

'No, not murder; at least I hope that she won't be charged with murder. Murder requires intent.'

He'd mistaken my French curse for an English word, but I didn't interrupt to correct him.

'This was—I don't know what you'd call it—an accident? I've never heard of anyone dying from a Splinching. Perhaps the fact that he was a Muggle might have something to do with it. Bobbie might know. She's a Muggle, and she absolutely hates Side-along Apparition.'

I wondered who Bobbie was. A girlfriend, perhaps?

'Where does the blame stop, Anaïse? Is this mess Éloïse's fault for trying to Side-along Apparate with Tommy in her arms? Is it Solène's fault for writing the letters that encouraged Éloïse to travel to London? Is it your fault for telling Solène?

'Oui,' I whispered.

'Or is it Éloïse after all? If she hadn't been horrible to you, if she hadn't upset you in the first place...'

'Non!' I protested.

Stan finally opened his eyes. A single tear trickled down his face.

'You blame yourself, Anaïse,' he said. 'It's natural, it's something we all do. You must not. Why must one person be to blame? My dad...' He hesitated, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped a sudden flood of tears from his face. 'I'd forgotten, until today, but when I was little, my dad used to tell me, "The world would be perfect if people weren't nasty to each other. The problem is that often they are. But worse than that, a lot of those times they don't even mean to be!" This was no more than a single flap of a butterfly's wing in Paris, Anaïse, and yet it created a storm in London, which swept back here. It has cost one life. It shouldn't cost any more.'

He shook his head sadly. 'I've been a fool, too. I need to confess.'

'Confess?' I asked.

'I know your secrets, Anaïse,' he said apologetically. In an attempt to regain his composure, he took a bite from his oranais aux abricots and a swig of coffee.

'I used Leglimency to find this hospital,' he said. He moved his eyes up from the table, but refused to meet mine. 'I looked into your mind. I'm sorry. Usually people try to stop me, so I have to use some force. You welcomed me in. Your concern for your friend made you incautious. It was only a moment, but in that moment I saw more of you than anyone has ever seen. That's how I can pronounce your name correctly. It's why I know what happened. I felt your grief and sorrow, and that was before you knew the whole story about Tommy! I can only imagine how you feel now you know everything I know. I also know that the image you see when you look in the mirror is not what I see sitting across the table from me.' He paused. 'And that has made me wonder if what I see in the mirror is the person you're looking at.'

I tried to grab his hand, but he pulled it away.

'Crap, that sounded like some soppy touchy-feely nonsense I'd use to try to get into your knickers. That's not what I want,' he stopped, a strange expression on his face. 'Damn, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'm sorry that I saw so much, Anaïse, and I'll understand if you never want to see me again after today... No, I'm still not saying the right thing. You... What I saw has made me hope that I'm not guilty myself. I...'

He looked me in the eye and spoke in a rush. My English is not so good that I could follow every word of his rapid confession, but there was a connection between us. Despite not knowing the words, I saw, and I understood.

'I loved my dad. He was a good man, and he was Muggleborn. During Tom Riddle's time, he managed to get some papers to prove otherwise. Almost everyone knew that it wasn't true, but most people liked him, so no one asked any awkward questions. Before I went to Hogwarts, he warned me, he told me that there were kids there I should avoid. But a lot of them were in the cool gang, and I wanted to be part of the cool gang. Dad wrote to me and warned me off. I was angry, so I told them the truth about my dad. I told them the names of my Muggle grandparents, too.'

His tears were flowing freely.

'Within two months, they were all dead. I've never told anyone this before, Anaïse, but I've always blamed myself.'

'But the boy you told did not 'ave to tell anyone else. And the 'ate-filled people 'oo killed your family. They all had their own choices to make.'

'I've never told anyone,' he repeated, 'not even my mother.'

'You must,' I told him, shocked. 'If you wish, I will stand by your side when you do. If... If you will stand wiz me when I face Éloïse and 'er parents.'

'I will,' he promised.


	7. On the Desk

**On the Desk**

The cool morning breeze caught my coat and flapped it against my calves. It added a chill freshness to the unpleasant smell of traffic fumes outside Waterloo Station. I hesitated for a moment. The area outside the station was uncomfortably crowded. It seemed that every year more and more Muggles were being drawn to the sprawling city; it was a busy, vibrant, place.

Below Waterloo Bridge, the Thames was bustling with boats. To my left I could see the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben; to my right was the dome of St. Paul's and—on the South Bank—the Shard. The sparkling glass spike, which climbed impossibly high, was one of the newer additions to the skyline. It was a building that I'd watched grow. The Muggles were becoming bolder in their building projects, and they didn't even need magic to do it.

The journey from Waterloo to my workplace was one I'd been making for more years than I want to admit The location of the Ministry entrance, like the city itself, had changed over the years, the worst had been the public toilets.

I looked around the skyline of the capital. At one time, not long after _The Battle_, the London Eye had been new, spectacular. At that time it had been called the Millennium Wheel. Now, it was simply another feature on the river. When Waterloo Bridge joined the gently curving Strand, I turned left. In the distance, above the buildings, Admiral Lord Nelson stood on his column showing those few who bothered to look up the location of Trafalgar Square.

I've never really liked the Square—too many pigeons and too many tourists. But it's immaterial, as I don't have to walk that far. The Ministry of Magic is located on a side road on the left, not far from Covent Garden. As I strolled along the Strand towards it, I heard Big Ben ring out the three-quarter hour.

Harry allows me a lot of flexibility with my working hours. It was ten to nine when I entered the building through the revolving door, and left the busy Muggle world behind me. Most Ministry staff work from eight-thirty until five. Although the Auror Office never sleeps, I'm not an Auror. I don't work shifts, but there's little point in my being there early when I know my boss will be late.

Staff activity in the foyer had dwindled to almost nothing. The Floo connections were quiet, but they weren't completely inactive. A young witch and wizard leapt from the green flames. From their anxious chatter, and the way they dashed towards the Security Arches, I presumed they were late for work.

The only other person I could see in the foyer was a svelte and immaculately dressed blonde. She had her back to me and was parading her way towards one of the Visitor Arches looking like a model on a catwalk. As the chattering youngsters hurried past her, she turned to look. The moment I saw her profile, I realised that I knew her. The face was familiar, and yet for some reason I couldn't put a name to it. That annoyed me.

I like to think that Harry relies on my ability to remember names and faces, but this woman was somehow both familiar and unfamiliar. I watched as she swayed through one of the Visitor Arches. She was stunning and oozed confidence. She should have been easy to identify.

Approaching the arches myself, I pulled my identity badge from my handbag and unwound the yellow lanyard. I was slipping it over my head when realisation struck. It was seeing my own photo that did it. I'd never met the blonde, I didn't know her because I'd never seen her before, but I knew who she was.

Harry has half-a-dozen photographs in his office. Three are on his desk. They are: a snapshot of his wife; a posed portrait of his three children; and a holiday photograph of all five Potters.

The other three images hang on the wall behind the bookshelf, next to his conference table. They're all group photographs. He refers to them as: "the Army", "the in-laws", and "the outlaws", and he's in two of them.

Everyone has heard of Dumbledore's Army. The in-laws are, of course, the Weasley family. Ginny, herparents, and all five of her brothers. Harry is the only man in the "outlaws" photograph; he is surrounded by four women, three of whom work at the ministry. The four are, of course, the "Mrs Weasleys". Harry has his arms around two of them: Mrs Hermione Granger-Weasley, and Mrs Angelina Weasley.

As I walked under the arch, I spoke my name almost without thinking. I'd been picturing "the outlaws", and realised why I'd been unable to put a name to the blonde. We hadn't met; I'd never even seen a photograph of her. I recognised her simply because—in profile at least—she bore a striking resemblance to her sister, the only Mrs Weasley who didn't work at the Ministry. Panicking, I checked my watch, and then confirmed the time by looking at the clock on the wall opposite the lifts. It wasn't later than I thought; Harry's visitor was more than two hours early for her appointment—the appointment I'd made.

'Is the Head Auror expecting you, miss dee-la-coor?' I heard the puzzled receptionist ask as I entered the Atrium.

'Auror Delacour's appointment with Harry isn't until eleven, Kevin,' I called. 'That's probably why you can't find it. Issue her with a visitor's pass, please, and I'll take her up to the office.'

'Auror?' the receptionist asked in frank disbelief.

'Bureau des Aurors de France,' she told the young man before turning and throwing an enquiring look in my direction.

'I'm Martha Nicholson, Harry's personal assistant. I arranged the meeting.'

As I introduced myself, I held out my hand. She stepped past it and grabbed my shoulders. I found myself being enveloped in an expensive fragrance as I was enthusiastically kissed on both cheeks.

'You are the famous Martha!' she exclaimed joyfully. 'Harry's "other woman." Enchanté.'

'Charmed, I'm sure,' I replied. Unsure whether to be pleased or worried by her description, and uncertain what I should do or say, I simply indicated the receptionist. 'You'll need to take your Visitor Pass before we go any further, Auror Delacour, otherwise you'll set off our alarms.'

'Gabrielle, please,' she insisted.

Taking the pass from the receptionist, she thanked him with a smile that made him stagger. 'Harry speaks highly of you,' she told me, making me feel good, too. I tried not to be distracted by the compliment.

'You're very early,' I observed as I led her toward the lifts.

'I hoped to see Harry, and Denis, before the meeting,' she said.

'You won't see Harry,' I told her. 'Not unless there's a major emergency. He may even be a little late; he and Ginny are at their local pool. It's half term, and the kids are doing their swimming awards this morning.'

'Swimming?' she asked, a strange smile appeared on her face. 'I remember first seeing Harry in his swimming trunks, when I was small.' she held out a hand at waist height.

I nodded politely. 'Dennis will be in the office.' I paused, and pressed the button for the lift. 'And so will Stan. At least they'd better be, because they haven't filed their closure report with me.'

'How is Stan?' her concern sounded genuine. 'He was so sad when he left. Seeing people's emotions, even briefly, can be a curse.'

'He's a lot less...' I thought for a moment and discarded many of the unfavourable words that came to mind. I was saved by the arrival of the lift. I paused, and indicated that Gabrielle should enter first. After the doors closed, I tried again, taking a different tack. 'Since his return from Paris, Stan seems to be rather more sensitive to other people's feelings,' I told her.

'Every Englishman is a castle, guarded and fortified,' Gabrielle observed. 'But Stan's defences have been breached—by _une ballot fille_ of all things—and he doesn't know how to repair them. I suspect that he doesn't even know if he wants to.'

I didn't understand the French term she'd used, so I simply gave a noncommittal murmur. As I hadn't asked for a translation, I wasn't offered one. We continued to the Auror Office in silence.

Both Dennis and Stan were at their desks, and each called out a hello to Gabrielle when we entered. I watched as she greeted both men with kisses like the one I'd received.

'So that's Auror Delacour,' said Bobbie Wood, arriving at my side. 'She's very early, and she's as annoyingly beautiful as everyone said she was.'

I examined Bobbie carefully. It seemed that she was bursting to tell me something else, but she said nothing. I watched her as she assessed the French Auror, who was now admiring the photographs on Dennis' desk.

'I'm to call her Gabrielle,' I said. 'Watch out for those kisses, I got one too. And she's early because she was hoping to see "Harry and Denis" before the meeting. But never mind them; you have news, don't you?'

Bobbie laughed. 'You don't miss anything, do you? Yes, I have news. There's likely to be a request for a reference on your desk. I'd like a word with Harry after the meeting.'

'Congratulations,' I said. 'Who knows?'

'Ollie, but no one else,' she told me. 'I'd like to keep it that way if possible, Martha. At least until I decide what I'm going to do.'

'No problem,' I assured her.

* * *

I looked at the clock; it was eight minutes past eleven. The meeting should have begun, but there was still no sign of Harry, and he hadn't contacted me. I'd shown everyone else into his office. Even the last of them had arrived five minutes early, so they'd been in there for almors fifteen minutes. I didn't like the idea of them being kept waiting by my boss, and I was just about to get in touch with him when he breezed in. He was wearing shorts and a polo shirt, and looking rather warm.

'Morning, Martha. Sorry I'm late; you can tell me off later. James got his eight hundred metres.' Despite his apology, it was obvious that he wasn't even slightly repentant about his late arrival. His pride in his kids' achievements trumped everything else. 'It's a long way to swim. It took him longer than we thought, and then we had photos, and certificates to buy. Is everyone here? Anything I need to know?'

'Everyone's here,' I told him. 'And—according to Lavender—Anne wants to leave straight after the meeting. Nothing serious—her sister's been taken into St. Mungo's. She wants to visit, but you know Anne, work comes first. She doesn't want to let you down, so she's planning on visiting during her lunch hour. Also, Bobbie wants a word with you after the meeting.'

'Thanks, Martha,' he said gratefully. 'Let's get started.'

He strode towards his office door and held it open for me. Picking up my parchment and a minute-taker quill, I hurried into his office where only two seats remained at the meeting table.

'Morning, everyone, sorry I'm late,' he said. The woman from the A.L.A. was staring at him open mouthed. I wasn't certain whether because he was so casually dressed, or merely because he was Harry Potter.

'How did the kids do, Harry?' Dennis asked.

'Eight hundred metres for James, four hundred for Al, and one hundred for Lily,' said Harry proudly. 'But I'll tell you later, Den, if you're really interested. Hi, Gabi, long time no see. You're looking great, as always.'

'Bonjour, Harry.' The French Auror stood, and I watched her and my boss exchange kisses and an embrace. It was obvious from the way he returned the kisses that Harry knew what was expected of him. I noticed that, in the "outlaws" photograph, Fleur was smiling. In the other two photographs, the Ginnys were rolling their eyes.

'Right,' said Harry brusquely. 'We're here to discuss Muggle Interface Team case three-double-seven: the death of a Muggle—Tommy Harris—at the hands of a witch. I called the meeting to determine what action is to be taken by this office. For the benefit of the minutes, we should introduce ourselves. I'll start: Harry Potter, Head Auror.'

'Chief Inspector Roberta Wood, Auror Office – Muggle Liaison Officer.'

'Senior Auror Dennis Creevey.'

'Auror Stanley Cresswell.'

'Auror Gabrielle Delacour, Bureau des Aurors de France,'

'Anne White, Auror Office – Forensic Magic Unit.'

'Graham Pilkington, Wizengamot Prosecution Service.'

'Glynis Hughes, um, I'm, er, from the Apparition Licensing Agency in Swansea.' It was obvious that the young woman from the A.L.A. was unused to such illustrious company.

'Martha Nicholson, Personal Assistant to Head Auror Harry Potter, and minute-taker,' I said, closing the circle and taking my seat at Harry's right.

I'd been watching the quill carefully, making certain that the names were all correct. When my name appeared, I nodded to my boss.

'I've read all of the statements and reports,' Harry began. 'We have statements from the three French nationals directly involved, and our investigations show that Tommy Harris died because of the actions of one of the three Frenchwomen, Éloïse Joubert.'

'She...' Stan began to protest. Harry held up his hand to silence him.

'We'll establish the facts and determine jurisdiction before we hear any mitigating circumstances, Stan,' Harry said. 'This became an Auror Office case after the initial crime scene visit showed magic was involved in the suspicious death of a Muggle. The first question is, was it murder?' He again waved Stan into silence. 'Anne, you go first. I'm told that you've got better things to do than sit in here. You've read Éloïse's statement?' He turned briefly to Gabrielle. 'Thanks for the translated copies,' he told her.

'I've read everyone's statements, Harry,' the round-faced little Forensic Magic Specialist said. 'And they agree with my assessment of the physical and magical evidence from the New Music Theatre. The evidence all confirms that Éloïse Joubert had no intent to kill anyone. In my opinion, this wasn't wilful murder, but an accident. She was, it seems, unaware of the dangers of an international Side-along Apparition, particularly one involving a Muggle. We could make an argument for—and in my opinion, prove—i_involuntary manslaughter under common law_/i, but I'll bow to others with more expertise, as I believe the matter may actually fall under the Apparition legislation.'

'I agree,' Harry told her. 'If you think you will have more to add to our discussion, then stay, but I hear that your sister is in hospital, so if you want to leave...' He tipped his head back towards the door.

'Thanks, Harry!' Surprised by the offer, Anne White stood and left. I used my wand to ensure that the minutes reflected the fact.

'I don't believe we've met, Glynis,' Harry said. 'Welcome to the Auror Office. I don't think we'll take up much of your time. We only called on Alun Treadwell two or three times a year. Is he enjoying his retirement?'

'I... I don't know, I'm sorry,' the woman admitted, looking startled. There was silence—she didn't realise that was her cue.

'Licence,' I reminded her.

'Oh, yes,' she said gratefully. She looked down at her notes. 'The young lady, Elly-wheeze Joo-bert...'

'Éloïse Joubert!' Gabi's correction was sharp and forceful.

'Yes, her. Well... we've been in contact with the...' she glanced down at her notes, then across at Gabrielle, and decided against attempting to pronounce the words. '...with our opposite numbers in France. She has a valid French Apparition Licence and—under the terms of eat—she's...'

'Eat?' Harry interjected.

'Oh, er, um, the European Apparition Treaty, sorry, sir,' said Glynis, floundering for a moment. 'Um, well, er, she is fully entitled to Apparate within the UK.'

'Anne referred to the Apparition legislation. Under UK law, causing death by careless—or dangerous—Apparition is an offence, correct?' Harry asked.

'That's right,' Glynis nodded. 'The offence carries a maximum sentence of fourteen years in the case of dangerous Apparition, and ten years for careless Apparition, but I...' She stopped, and I could see panic in her eyes. She was looking for a hint from Harry. She didn't know what conclusion he wanted her to reach.

'Go on, what's i_your_/i view on the jurisdiction issue.' I said, hoping that Harry hadn't realised why she was hesitating. He doesn't like it when people tell him what they think he wants to hear. I made a mental note to have a word with her after the meeting.

'I... I'm not certain where we stand, legally, Mr Potter,' Glynis began nervously. 'Miss ... the French lady ... i_Disapparated_/i from London and i_Apparated_/i to Paris. The offence on statute refers to i_Apparition_/i, and for that reason, I'm not certain that—technically—this offence took place in the UK.'

'Which is why Graham is here,' said Harry, turning to the elderly man from the Wizengamot Prosecution Service.

'I've looked at the law, and I've spoken to the French Authorities, Harry,' the elderly man spoke slowly and carefully. 'Glynis is quite correct. The use of the word Apparition—rather than Disapparition—in the legislation would indicate that any legal action must be taken by the responsible authority for law enforcement at the _destination_. I expect that any appeal to the Wizengamot—were one lodged—would reach the same conclusion. There has been no case law regarding the jurisdictional issue, nor have there been any previous international cases anywhere in Europe. It seems that, in the past thirty years, the Sheriff's Offices have dealt with only three cross-Shire death-by-Apparition incidents. However, having checked the paperwork on those cases, I have discovered that the Sheriffs, albeit informally, used different reasoning to determine jurisdiction.'

'They did?' Harry asked.

'Yes. As I said, there have only been three reported cases of death by Splinching, Harry, and in every case the Sheriffs have decided that the Sheriff who has the head of the victim is the one who takes control of the investigation, and carries out any prosecution. I've checked, and in every case the head—or most of it in one case—was at the destination. Although they used incorrect reasoning, they complied with the law. This case is the same: the French Authorities have the head and, as they are also at the Apparition point, then...' Graham Pilkington paused and took a sip of water. 'I don't want to i_pass the buck_/i, as it were. The victim was British, after all. We could make a case to the French, if you wish to try to retain jurisdiction. But if they objected, then I believe we have little chance of success.'

'I'd be happy to let the French Authorities deal with it,' Harry observed.

Gabrielle, Dennis, and Stan all nodded their heads. I didn't make a note that fact.

'Gabi,' Harry said.

'I have spoken with the _procureur magique_—I do not believe that you have such an official...' Gabrielle hesitated.

'They do in Scotland,' Harry said. 'Or at least the Procurator Fiscal has a very similar role, I believe.'

'So ... good.' Gabrielle nodded. 'Jean-Claude—the _procureur magique_ assigned to this case—is in agreement with your Graham here,' she said. 'This is a French crime, and it is for the Département de la Justice Magique to decide how to proceed. He has already begun to take action.'

'But, Anaïse...' Stan could keep silent no longer, 'And Éloïse, and...'

'Stan!' Harry said, once again staring Auror Creswell into an anxious silence. 'Go on, Gabi,' he added.

'I have discussed the case in detail with Jean-Claude, and we have carried out preliminary interviews with all three of the young women involved. Éloïse has told us that she will plead guilty to... I believe that the woman...' she indicated Glynis, '...called it "death by dangerous Apparition." She will have her licence revoked, be banned from Apparating for five years, fined, and she will be unable to Apparate unless she is retested by our authorities. Éloïse has a broken heart. She begged for jail, but Jean-Claude is inclined to leniency, she has already suffered. She will work within the community for at least one year.'

'Anaïse...' Stan began.

'Anaïse has also accepted responsibility for her actions,'

'She's truly sorry,' Stan told Harry. He turned accusingly to Gabrielle. 'I thought I was to be a character witness for her. I insisted!'

'Jean-Claude took your report—and the report of Denis—into account,' Gabrielle told him. 'He decided that he did not need to question you. Anaïse, too, will plead guilty to contributing to the death. I do not know what her crime is called in English; incitement, possibly? It is likely that she, too, will work within the community for one year. It may be longer, as Solène has accused Anaïse of assault, and is insisting that she be prosecuted...'

'Solène deserved to be slapped,' Stan said angrily.

'Stan!' Harry said. 'Enough. It's a matter for the French authorities, take any protests to them.'

'I will!' He glowered.

'You will be required in court, Stan. Solène is contesting the charges against her.' Gabrielle shook her head in disbelief. 'She may, I suppose, be found innocent. If not, then she too will be punished.'

Stan continued to mutter under his breath. I ensured that my quill didn't record his words.

'Thanks, Gabi. On the basis of what I've heard I think our final decision has to be case closed, at least from our side of the Channel,' announced Harry. 'The Département de la Justice Magique appears to have everything in hand, and it seems that they have jurisdiction. Does everyone agree?'

Around the table, every head nodded.

'Unanimous agreement from all those present,' I said for the benefit of the minutes.

'Good. Case closed: outside Auror Office jurisdiction,' said Harry. 'I'll sign it off on that basis. Bobbie, we'll need an excuse for the police, and we'll need to close down their investigation, there's no point in them wasting any more time on this. We can talk about the details after everyone else has left. Does anyone want to add anything, any comments or questions?'

'I've been working through my holidays, Harry,' Stan said. 'Is it okay if I take a few days off now?'

'Fine,' Harry told him. 'Sort it out with Martha. Anyone else?'

Heads were shaken, but no one spoke.

'Good. Thanks for your attendance, everyone.'

We all filed out, all but Bobbie. I closed the door, giving Bobbie and Harry some privacy, and turned to Glynis. 'I'd like a word,' I told her.

She looked terrified.

'Holidays,' Stan reminded me. 'I want to get back to Paris.'

'Spare me the details,' I told him. 'Just tell me how many days you'll be on leave.'

He looked at Gabrielle, who laughed.

'I have found you accommodation in the twelfth Arrondissement, Stan, the Bastille district. It is not so far from Anaïse.'

'Two weeks, starting today,' Stan told me.

'Fine,' I said, making a note. 'Off you go, Stan. Now, Glynis, if you're going to be out A.L.A. contact I'd better tell you what Harry expects from you.'


	8. On the Cusp

**On the Cusp**

Pushing aside the remains of my Szechuan chicken and fried rice I hit enter, saving my latest amendments into the folder I'd named "Auror Office". My trip to the West Country had confirmed that the third of the three addresses I'd traced was correct. Detective Chief Inspector Roberta A Wood lived in a tiny village in rural Dorset, a place called Bere Regis.

It was ridiculous. She'd just returned to work from maternity leave, yet she lived more than a hundred miles—a two-hour drive—from London. Despite a lot of digging, I'd been unable to determine what her husband, Oliver, did for a living; it seemed he was a house-husband. After pinning her address on the map, I linked all of the data I'd collected on the Wood family to the pin and looked through the other folders.

No one, not even DCI Bradstreet, was interested in pursuing the Tommy Harris murder. It was "an international case," he told me when, only days after we'd found half a corpse, the investigation was shut down. The security service was working with the French Authorities, who had the other half of the body. The order to close the case had come from the very top. Amazingly, despite the gory details, the press appeared to have forgotten the story.

After two weeks of off duty investigations, I had not made much progress in my enquiries about the murder. The Home Office pathologist wouldn't talk to me, and I'd been unable to get any sense from Harris' boyfriend. He seemed to be taking comfort from the fact that the death had been accidental. I'd asked him how and why he'd reached that conclusion, but he couldn't give me an answer. Frustrated, I had turned my attention to "The Auror Office" and its staff. I knew that they operated out of the Home Office, and I'd discovered that their head was someone named "Mr H J Potter". The only staff members I'd been able to track down were the trio who'd attended the crime scene.

Dennis Creevey lived in Esher with his wife and a young daughter. His home was some distance outside London, but it was a much more reasonable commute than DCI Wood's. Stanley Cresswell was the only person who lived centrally; he had a small flat in Camden. According to my research, both Creevey and Cresswell were civil servants, but that was a job title that could mean anything.

I'd checked out creepy Cresswell first; I thought that he'd be easy. I'd never had any intention of seeing him; he was one of those men who thought that no meant yes, so when he'd asked me out I'd said yes and agreed to meet him at a restaurant. I'd never had any intention of going, but at least my agreement had stopped him pestering me.

When the case was suddenly closed I changed my plans. Instead of simply standing him up, I parked in a side street overlooking the restaurant where we'd arranged to meet, and waited. He didn't turn up. The fact that he'd stood me up annoyed me more than it should have. It took me days to find his address, and when I did his neighbour told me that Cresswell was in France. I assumed that he was still on the case, as the neighbour had no idea when he'd be back.

In desperation, I went online and checked out the police message boards. When I asked about the Auror Office, everyone warned me off. According to the gossip, they were the Home Office's "X-files" squad: interested in flying saucers, ghosts, vampires, and werewolves. I'd said that my case wasn't like that; it involved a violent death—a man had been cut in two. Even then, very few messages came back, and most of them told me to drop it.

The few helpful messages gave me some other names: Beadle (DCI Wood's maiden name, I later discovered), Bones, Brown, Moon, Protheroe, and Tepes were the names that appeared most frequently. The only really useful reply I got enclosed a few scanned documents. The message said, "They like locked rooms and invisible men, too. And magic. Is your case anything like the sawing a woman in half trick? Good luck."

I began rereading the files I'd been sent. The biggest file was a report about an estate agent, a missing police officer, and a mysterious house that had not appeared on the map of the area. Like the Tommy Harris murder, it was a series of very strange events. Although, in that particular case, no one had died.

The report was useful, despite the fact that it had obviously been doctored. I'd already noted the names of the estate agent and several of the Norfolk police officers who'd been involved, and I was trying to track them down. I was about to get back to the task when my doorbell rang. Whoever it was had entered the building without buzzing my intercom. It could have been a neighbour, of course, but…

I went into my bedroom and collected my _bokken_ from the wardrobe before going to the door. When I peered through the peep hole, I saw DCI Wood.

'What do _you_ want?' I shouted through the door.

'The case was closed, but you kept on investigating, Detective Constable Smith,' she said. 'And now you've decided to investigate us! I'm here to tell you to stop.'

'How did you find me?' I asked.

'The same way you found me,' she said. 'Good honest coppering. Are you going to let me in? I'm unarmed, if you're worried.' She took off her long black coat, revealing the white blouse, grey cravat, and black trousers she'd worn at the crime scene. There was no sign of any weapon; she wasn't even carrying a handbag. After lifting the wallet containing her warrant card from a pocket, she raised her arms and performed a slow pirouette.

Satisfied, I opened the door and she stepped inside. I kept a tight grip of my _bokken_, ready to strike.

'Nice place,' she said, apparently unperturbed by my stance.

'Thanks,' I told her. 'Leave the coat there!'

She smiled as she hung it on one of the pegs next to the door, and nodded politely as I ushered her into the lounge.

'Detective Constable Tallulah Smith.' When DCI Wood reached the sofa, she turned to face me. Her expression was assessing, and she didn't appear to be alarmed by my weapon. 'You entered the police service immediately after leaving university. You have a law degree, a two-one, from the University of Reading. You specialised in criminal law. While you were at university you took up both Kendo and archery, and in your final year you became treasurer of the Kendo club.' She pointed at the _bokken_ I still carried. 'That's a kendo sword of some kind, isn't it?'

'It's a _bokken_, a practice katana made from wood,' I said. 'It won't kill you, but I know how to use it. I could certainly break a few bones.' I used it to point at the sofa; she sat.

'I was a beat bobby when Harry recruited me,' DCI Wood said, crossing her legs and staring up at me. 'You remind me of me. Keen as mustard, angry at the injustice, and not sure about what you're dealing with. Would you like to know?'

'Yes!'

'Are you completely sure?' she asked. 'This is your last chance to walk away. You could just delete those files you've been emailed, and that would be the end of it.'

'Is that a threat?' I asked her.

'Of course not,' she assured me. 'But I should warn you that, one way or another, I'm about to change your world.'

'One way or another?' I asked suspiciously.

'I've been working for the Auror Office for fourteen years, that's most of my career. I'm thirty-seven years old and I have two sons, one almost five and the other a newborn. You already know all of that, because you've been investigating me. What you don't know is that I've just been offered a Superintendent's post with Dorset Police. It's a promotion to a desk job, and it's a lot closer to home. I'm a mother, I've seen enough strange sights and mangled corpses, and I've met a lot of monsters. I want to spend more time with my family, so…'

She hesitated. I waited for her to continue.

'Harry—he's my boss—his title is Head Auror.'

'Mr H J Potter,' I said, nodding.

'You found Harry's name? Well done,' she said. 'You'll have to tell us how you did that.'

I shook my head.

'There's going to be a vacancy in our office. There may even be two, if Stan means it when he claims that he's going to learn French and stay in Paris as part of the Auror exchange programme. There'll be dozens of internal applications for Stan's job. But mine is more specialised, and it isn't a job that can be advertised,' she continued. 'Harry suggested that Dennis take charge of the team. I think that's a good idea. Dennis will make a good boss, but after a lot of thought, and a long meeting, I've come to realise that the Auror Office still needs a copper, a liaison officer, on their staff. Someone like you; you're young, fit, and clever, and you're on the fast track for promotion. I've checked up on you. DCI Bradstreet thinks very highly of you.'

I grunted dismissively.

'He does,' she assured me. 'But he's worried that you're throwing away your career by investigating us. I disagree. I think you'd be an asset to the Auror Office. I can't offer you a job, but I can offer you an interview. The Muggle Liaison Officer's post was created for me, and I was beginning to wonder if I'd made myself redundant, but both Harry and Dennis think it's become essential. They really need someone to explain how our world works, particularly the police procedures. Now that I'm married to Ollie, I'm beginning to lose touch with Muggle technology. They need fresh blood.'

'Muggle?' I asked. 'Our world? What are you talking about? Are you going to tell me i_anything_/i about the murder of Tommy Harris? Are you interested in finding out who killed him? Or do you know?'

'We shut down your investigation as soon as we knew what we were dealing with, and after Stan averted a second death.'

'What?'

'The teenage girl who was responsible for Mr Harris' death tried to poison herself. Stan's back in France. He claims to be in a purely platonic relationship with the little mademoiselle who helped him find the perpetrator. I'm not sure I believe him, but there's a first time for everything, I suppose.'

She paused, and shook her head. 'That's beside the point. We know how Tommy Harris died and who was responsible. His boyfriend has been told an acceptable truth. It wasn't a murder, Tallulah, it was…' DCI Beadle hesitated. 'Unfortunately, I can't give you an explanation that you'll understand. If you really want to know…'

Opening her wallet, she pulled out a card and placed it on my coffee table.

'It was like a car crash, I suppose,' she said. 'The driver made a serious mistake while over-emotional, and the passenger died.'

'An accident?' I snorted dismissively. 'You expect me to believe it was an iaccident/i? Don't be ridiculous!'

'This is one of those occasions where I haven't been able to come up with a Muggle-friendly story,' she said apologetically.

'What the hell is a Muggle?' I asked.

'You are,' she said matter-of-factly. 'And so am I. If you want to know more, if you _really_ want to know what happened, read the card and attend the interview.'

'I still have this,' I reminded her, waving my wooden sword.

'And I really am a Detective Chief Inspector with the Met.,' she reminded me. 'You've checked up on me, so you know that's true. You're not really going to assault me. That _would_ end your career.'

Standing, she pocketed her wallet, walked to my front door, and picked up her coat. I followed her, uncertain what to do. Opening my front door, she turned and gave me a mischievous smile. 'Besides, I'm armed.' Reaching under her shoulder, she pulled a Taser out from nowhere. I took a hasty step backwards. 'Invisible holster, it's based on the same principle as a Headless Hat. It's proved very useful over the years. If you're interested in a job, you'll get to meet our suppliers, Ron and George Weasley. That will be a real treat for you. They'll provide you with a lot of cool toys to play with. Read the card, go to the Ministry. All your questions will be answered, but then you'll have even more. To be honest, there are still things I don't understand, and I'm married to a wizard.'

With that, she turned and left. As I watched her go, I wondered whether she was insane. The thought that I might be the crazy one pushed itself forwards, but I tried to ignore it.

* * *

At quarter to ten the following morning I was walking along the Strand, heading from Trafalgar Square towards Covent Garden. I looked down at the card in my hand.

_Auror Office,_

_Department for Magical Law Enforcement,  
Ministry of Magic,_

_Merlin Street,_

_LONDON_

On the reverse DCI Wood had written: _It's off the Strand, head east from Trafalgar Square. Be there at 10:00 am tomorrow, if you want answers and, possibly, a job. R A W_

That morning I'd shown the card to my neighbour and asked him to read it. He read DCI Wood's handwritten words, but when I turned it over, he said that the obverse was blank. So did the newsagent where I bought my paper. I attempted to read the address aloud to him, but I couldn't, instead I had a coughing fit.

The woman sitting next to me as I rode the DLR from Lewisham to Bank agreed with them. I showed her the card, address side up, and asked. 'Excuse me, do you have any idea which is the nearest tube station to this place?' She'd looked at me as though I was mad before turning the card over.

'For the Strand? Charing Cross, or Embankment,' she said before pointedly turning away from me.

Merlin Street wasn't on any map, but I found it easily enough. The building was large, and it looked to be Victorian. The only sign outside was a small brass plaque which read "Ministry of Magic". Apart from that, it looked like any other building. When I walked through the revolving door and into a foyer filled with fireplaces I realised that Inspector Wood had been telling me the truth.


End file.
